Beau Brummell His Life And Times

MO PUBLIC LIBRARY

HIS LIFE AND TIMES

HIS LIFE AND TIMES

Carlo Maria Franzero

THE JOHN DAY COMPANY NEW YORK

*1958 BY CARLO MARIA FRANZERO

All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, must not be
reproduced in any form without permission. Published by
The John Day Company, 62 West 45th St., New York 36, N.Y.

Library of Congress Catalogue
Card Number: 59-5452

MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

CONTENTS

Part One
THE VALET'S GRANDSON page 13

Part Two
ARBITER ELEGANTIARUM 95

Part Three
THE BEAU IN EXILE 145

Part Four
THE LAST RECEPTION 213

ILLUSTRATIONS

Following page 128
BrummelPs Crest
George Bryan Brummell

William Brummell (Father of Beau Brummell)
Mrs. William Brummell (Mother of Beau Brummell)
George Bryan Brummell as a boy
View down Regent Street from Piccadilly
Beau Brummell, aged 27, at the height of his reign in

London

George, Prince Regent, at Brighton Pavilion
Frederica, Duchess of York
Carlton House
A Corner of the Golden Drawing-Room at Carlton

House

The Great Staircase at Carlton House
1812, or Regency a la Mode
Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire
Mrs. Fitzherbert
Frances, Lady Jersey
Salon, Royal Pavilion, Brighton
Brighton Pavilion: A Concert in the Music Room
Beau Brummell at Calais

The House of Madame Guerin de Saint-Ursin at Caen
47, Rue Des Carmes, Caen

PREFACE

The only moral one can draw from history is that it is
much better to invent a new fashion than a new
social theory. The first may improve the appearance of
men; the latter will only bring about a revolution.

For this I choose Brummell as the most famous of
Englishmen. Brummell is a symbol, not a mere human
being. Don't let us ask what great deeds he performed or
what he did for his country, or to help the people. He did
only one thing an entirely useless thing, many people
would say he invented a new fashion.

Yet, if we consider it, was it really an entirely useless
thing? Of the long history of mankind what do we really
remember? The changing fashions of the peoples. Indeed,
the history of the world is written in the iconography of
men's fashions their dresses, their coiffures, their man-
ners and ways of life.

Brummell does not belong to the political history of
England, yet he is more immortal than any politician.
His place in history is, indeed, loftier and yet more diffi-
cult to assess, for it is the history of English manners and
taste.

Brummell was the expression of the tendencies of his
times; yet his influence transcends all times. Brummell
felt beauty and elegance as a woman or an artist feels it.
His celebrity was due to his elegance. Like Oscar Wilde
a century later, his presence in any company was a sure
guarantee that the conversation would be brilliant. With
Brummell his wit went hand-in-hand with style. One

7

wonders whether dandyism charmed Brummell rather on
the intellectual side than on the actual side; and although
he spent his life in company, he was in fact an aloof man,
with an aristocratic reserve, full of impertinent disdain,
ever at war with his environment. He was the man of the
world in the complete sense.

BrummelPs life should be purged of the trivial and un-
pleasant details which burden the usual biographies. He
was, one may say, a vain man, and the world is pitiless
towards vanity. Why? Moralists decry it with big words,
even those who do not hide how large a place it occu-
pies in their souls. Brummell was also an upstart; but he
was a genius, and gave his style and his manners to the
society that was by birth his superior he gave the whole
world a definition of dressing well, and he had that rare
faculty of classifying at a glance the members of a com-
pany; he had a social perspective, that enabled him to
approach all things and all men, and when he chose to
approach them at all, in his unique manner, holding
them in the palm of his hand, he added to them a new
lustre and an elegance all his own.

Never has society been in greater need of a new
Brummell 1 Brummell would have saved our world from
that sheer vulgarity which is called Democracy.

I have, indeed, written this life of Beau Brummell as a
counterpoise to a surfeit of Democracy. When the shabby
coat with leathern patches at the elbows and borders at
the cuffs came to be worn as a kind of political badge,
English elegance was laid in the grave for ever, and I felt
that England should have done something for the man
who invented the starched cravat, an event that was, in
itself, devoid of social results, but left nevertheless an
impact upon the social history of England as great and
immortal as the advent of the Welfare State.

8

As a token of gratitude for the many happy years I have
lived in England may I, therefore, make my bow to Beau
Brummell an Englishman whose name will always be
remembered with pleasure.

G.M.F.

/ would rather be Brummell than Napoleon.

LORD BYRON

PART ONE

The Valet's Grandson

One rainy day in the year 1837, in the Brittany town
of Caen, some urchins loitering about the street
saw an elderly gentleman tottering along, keeping close
to the houses. He looked like the caricature of a fashion-
able man, with his boots very much down at heel,
trousers that had seen better days, a greatcoat with its
moth-eaten fur collar turned up against the wind and the
rain, and a tall hat, oh ! so very shabby and yet absurdly
worn at a rakish angle. The elderly gentleman was tra-
versing the muddy cobbles with a funny step that, had
those urchins only known it, used to be described as
that gentleman's elegant way of walking entre une goutte de
pluie et Vautre> between one raindrop and another. . . .

Suddenly the elderly gentleman slipped on the mud,
lost his balance and fell. To the very young it is a comical
sight to see an elderly gentleman in a top hat slipping
over the muddy cobbles and falling with both legs in the
air, endeavouring to keep his tall hat upon his wig. The
urchins laughed and cried: "Voila Monsieur Brummell, qui
s'en est alU lesjambes en Fair!"

Some passers-by helped Monsieur George Brummell to
get up and charitably escorted him as far as his hotel. He
was certainly not in a fit condition to proceed as far as
Madame de St. Ursain's for a social visit. Besides, he was
bleeding and bruised, and a waiter at the hotel discovered
that one of his boots was only half pulled on.

Monsieur George Brummell refused to be put to bed;
he wanted to sit in his arm-chair, which was much d&la-

15

info, very much in need of re-upholstering. But it was the
arm-chair that had been given to him by Her Royal
Highness the Duchess of York. And to sit in that arm-
chair, in front of the fireplace, although the grate was
empty, was to enjoy once again the flow of happy
memories.

Those memories! Oh, if only he had accepted the offer
of the London booksellers and written them down in a
great big volume ! But the Duchess of York had made him
promise it seemed now so long ago that he would
never put down on paper anything connected with the
Royal Family. And what was his own life but the mirror
of all the follies and all the vanity that was called his
friendship and his quarrel with the Prince Regent, later
King George the Fourth?

The Regent poor Prinny, so angry because he had
called him fat! The memory of it brought the flicker of a
smile to Monsieur BrummelPs thin lips. His eyes glanced
at the mantel no, the famous snuff-box had gone long
ago, even his last and very modest silver one had gone,
and all his seals, his chains, his gold repeater-watch, for
which he had once paid eighty guineas, all had been sold
for a song. Nothing, nothing whatever remained; only
his memories, and the ghosts. The ghosts he saw in this
very room.

It was a tragedy to have lived too long : he was now a
king in exile who had outlived his reign.

In that shabby, fireless room, Monsieur George Brum-
mell, ci-devant Prince of Fashion and now a wreck of a
man and a little mad, thought that the greatest joke of his
life was that he, who had been the equal of the Prince
Regent, was descended from a valet.

16

II

Yes, Grandfather William Brummell had been a valet.
The family tree went no farther than the year 1734,
when a young man of twenty-five called William Brum-
mell had been engaged as valet by Charles Monson of
Broxbourne and Spring Gardens, Vauxhall, who in that
very year had exercised the Monson' s prerogative of
standing for Lincoln, and was returned as Member of
Parliament.

William was a gentleman's gentleman of rare qualities;
a valet who loved his calling as an art, and remained in
the service of the Monsons all his life. He was also a man
of thrift, and having married and begot two sons, whom
he called William and Benjamin, he acquired with his
savings a house in Bury Street, St. James, and arranged
with his wife Jane the letting of the upper floors. The
neighbourhood was quite fashionable, and gentlemen in
town to attend Parliament or the rich young men of rank
much preferred private apartments run by former butlers
and valets to the rather haphazard inns.

One evening Mr. Charles Jenkinson, who was to be-
come the first Lord Liverpool, knocked at the lodging-
house in Bury Street, attracted, he used to recount, by the
penmanship of the small notice in the window, ' 'Apart-
ments to Let". The notice had been written by the young
Bill BrummelL William Charles Jenkinson, son of Charles
Jenkinson of Barford Lawn Lodge in the Forest of Which-
wood in Oxfordshire, who had commanded the Royal
Horse Guards Blue at the Battle of Dettingen, took an

17

apartment in William BrummelFs lodging-house in Bury
Street, and later on took an interest in the young man
who had written the notice. Later, in 1763, George Gren-
ville, Chancellor of the Exchequer, chose Jenkinson, now
leader of the "King's Friends' 3 in the Commons, as Joint-
Secretary to the Treasury and Jenkinson found William
Brummell, Jr., a clerkship in that office and made him
his Confidential Secretary. William Brummell continued
as private secretary at the Treasury when Lord North
became Prime Minister in 1 770, and was with him during
the twelve years of his administration. He must have been
an exceptional secretary, for Lord North conferred upon
him a series of lucrative appointments : Receiver of the
Duties on uninhabited houses in London and Middlesex,
Comptroller of the Hawkers' and Pedlars' Office, Agent
and Paymaster of the Pensioners of Chelsea Hospital, all
sinecures the net salaries of which amounted to 2,500
per annum : Lord North was called by the pamphleteers
"the God of Emoluments", and his private secretary en-
joyed a handsome share of the good things.

After Lord North's resignation, William Brummell re-
tired to the country and lived a life "distinguished by
private virtues" at his handsome seat, The Grove, near
Donnington Castle, a place famous for having been
the residence of Chaucer. It is said that the enriched
William Brummell "excelled for his exertions on behalf
of the infant poor". It is also recorded that he was most
hospitable to his affluent friends and the guests received
at The Grove included Charles James Fox and Richard
Brinsley Sheridan.

William the Elder had died on the last day of the
month in 1770, in which Lord North was named Prime
Minister. The final retirement to Bury Street had not
been a change for the better; but the first Brummell re-

18

corded by history died much comforted by the thought
that his son, now secretary to the Prime Minister of
England, need never be a valet.

Bill, now the head of the house of Brummell, between
picking up the perquisites that came his way in Lord
North's office, picked up a pretty wife in Miss Richardson,
daughter of the Keeper of the Lottery Office, one of the
prettiest girls of her day, slender and graceful with deli-
cately modelled features, and a mass of lovely hair such
as one sees in Gainsborough's "Perdita". Bill Brummell
himself was not a specimen of handsome manliness, with
his long nose and long underlip; but he was a shrewd
man, and the marriage with Miss Richardson was a good
lottery ticket.

In 1 793, Bill Brummell was left a widower, and exactly
one year and a day after his wife's burial he was himself
carried to the family vault at St. Martin's-in-the-Fields.
He left three children, born at short intervals: Maria,
William, and George Bryan, who was born on June 7th
1778, when his father was still living in London, and was
baptized at St. Margaret's, Westminster, on the 2nd of

July.

Ill

A the age of eight George was sent to Eton, the good
Lord North having given to his excellent secretary
nominations for both his sons, William and George. Their
father was anxious to secure, by his boy's connection with
Eton, a better approach to society; and through Lord
North's good offices Brummell major and Brummell
minor were accepted for the First Form, in which very
few boys at Eton began. William was placed seventh in
the list of ten and George was ninth.

Young Brummell showed no particular inclination to
studies, nor did he leave his name carved in the old panel-
ling. Neither was he fond of sports and athletic exercises.
One of his school-fellows recorded George Brummell as
clever but very idle, and most frank. It is added that, as a
fag, he could toast bread and cheese in an unsurpassable
way. But all have recorded that he was most fastidious
and neat in his dress, so much so that the boys nick-
named him Buck Brummell.

The school uniform was unbecoming : a blue coat with
a double row of large brass buttons, the top one of which
was left open to show a bit of white waistcoat and a
ruffled shirt. The cravat, also white, was tied in a bow:
was there something in his nature that made young
Brummell think that a cravat was an important thing in
a man's personality? He took at once to wearing the
wings of his cravat not only longer than it was customary
but more neatly tied, overlapping the lapels of his coat.

He also had a most unusual mouth for a boy of his

20

age. It was small, but with thick lips which he compressed,
and that gave him an air of impudence.

That air of impudence was to remain on his face for
ever as the imprint of the gods.

He was also remembered for his manner and ready wit.
Considering that the sons of the aristocracy lived at Eton
under almost appalling conditions of accommodation and
food, with a minimum of comfort, with beds of thin flock
mattresses and that they had to saw logs, scrub tables and
clean knives and fetch coal, one must conclude that the
fastidiousness of dress and deportment and foremost
that frankness of speech and biting wit that were to be-
come the greatest charm and asset of his career must
have come to young Brummell from the famous wits and
Bucks, the term Dandy had* not yet come into vogue,
whom he had, as a mere lad, so often seen at Donnington
round his father's table Charles Fox and Richard
Sheridan. Fox was thirty years older than little Brum-
mell. In the years he used to visit Donnington Hall he
affected a style of neglect in his dress, but there still was
around Fox the aura of the days when he had sported a
three-cornered hat upon a huge wig, talons rouges on his
shoes and had posed as a leader of the fashionable
"macaronis" at Brooks's Club. Moreover, the boy Brum-
mell had heard Fox talk of the urgency of the Regency
question when it could be no longer denied that George
III was insane; and the boy was duly impressed by the
knowledge that this man of fashion, a rake and a politi-
cian, was the mentor and idol of the young Prince of
Wales. And it was from the lips of Charles James Fox
that young Brummell heard the news of the French
Revolution, "the greatest event that ever happened in
the world and how much the best ! " The greatest certainly
it was ; as for being the best, the opinion of Fox did appear

21

somewhat rash to George Brummell in later years. And,
anyway, political events and changes did not leave a deep
impression upon young BrummelTs mind he was one of
the fortunate few for whom life is a personal matter, en-
tirely distinct from the affairs of states and peoples which
are the concern of kings and politicians.

At Eton young Brummell discovered one very impor-
tant thing that his manners and his wit made him a
leader among his fellows.

In the year before his father died, 1793, an event
occurred to the boy Brummell that was to have an im-
mense, an almost fatal, influence on his life he met the
Prince of Wales. [The wreck in the mean room in the
hotel at Caen stirred in his arm-chair.]

Brummell used to say in later years : "My first encoun-
ter with the Prince of Wales was bucolic' '; and the thick
underlip pressed forward more impudently, for there was
nothing pastoral in the fat prince nor in the sophisticated
Beau Brummell.

Yet, the gods of the future Petronius Arbiter of that
delightful period which was the Regency had ordained
that his first meeting with the prince, who was to be his
infatuated patron and friend and eventually his bitter
enemy, should take place in surrounds that were truly
bucolic.

There used to be in the Green Park a small pond. The
Green Park and the little St. James's Park already existed
before the Restoration of Charles II in 1660. Like the
Champs-Elysees in Paris, they were for long time fields
and pasture. In the time of Brummell, the small pond in
the Green Park 1 was surrounded by lovely trees, which
cast their pleasant shade over the walk that was called
the Queen's Promenade. Not far from this pond, and not

1 It was closed in 1856.
22

far from the present Clarges Street, there used to be a
rustic house blending with the surrounding countryside:
a tiny farm, a stable where a few cows were kept, with
rambling roses everywhere. The place belonged to an
aged lady-farmer, a Mrs. Searle, who continued to live
there till 1815, always walking about in an old-fashioned
dress and a tall bonnet, swaying with grace in a gown
a panzers. During the American Wars George III had en-
trusted Mrs. Searle with looking after the small place,
and the Princess Marie, the fifth child of George Ill's
fifteen children, had herself decorated the rooms. This
royal patronage had made Mrs. Searle a la mode, and the
maids-of-honour and ladies-in-waiting of the Queen used
to visit the charming cottage after their duties at St.
James's Palace, which had then a right wing, balancing
the still existing left one, till it was destroyed by fire in
1809.

One day in 1793 the Prince of Wales and the Mar-
chioness of Salisbury crossed the Green Park and entered
Mrs. Searle's farm-yard. Her ladyship pulled up her
skirts and went to help, or at least to watch, Mrs. Searle
milking her cows, while the Prince of Wales remained in
the yard chatting affably with a striking and pleasant
young lad of about fifteen years of age. "This is my
nephew, George Bryan Brummell, Your Highness/'
called Mrs. Searle from the stable. "He has just finished
his schooling at Eton, and this very year he will go to
Oxford. A very good boy is my nephew George, and
clever too."

The Prince glanced amiably at the young man: surely
he looked pleasant and handsome too. Perhaps, thought
the Prince, what was most pleasing was his air of good
grace and the assurance of his manner; there was a kind
of respectfulness mixed with audacity or was it just that

23

worldly air that Eton so peculiarly bestows ? The young
Prince of Wales he was at the time thirty-one asked
affably: "What would you like to be when you leave
college? 55 Young Brummell looked at the tall and well-
built Prince of Wales, graceful of manner, although al-
ready inclined to portliness; he took in with a look of
careful and envious appraisal the recherchS attire of the
Prince, the white curly wig, the immaculate and snowy
buckskin trousers, the highly glazed boots a I 9 ecuyere, the
well-cut habit buttoned high, the large cravat of per-
fectly laundered lawn out of which emerged with some
difficulty a double chin. Then he replied: "I would like
to be an officer in the Army." The Prince looked down
on the boy, and smiled at the conceit: "Well, young
George Brummell, come to see me again when you come
down from Oxford, and I will give you a Commission in
my regiment, the loth Hussars.' 5

The Marchioness of Salisbury had returned from her
bucolic enjoyment with Mrs. Searle, and the Prince and
the lady returned to their carriage. Young George Brum-
mell stared after the Prince: he had already seen him
some days before at Windsor, caracolant in all his glory
amid his brilliant officers, as Colonel of his regiment; and
he had also seen him in his equipage, with the coachmen
and lackeys in green liveries, coming out of Carlton
House. It was a marvellous expectation to look forward
to, the patronage of the glittering Prince of Wales.

IV

After the summer vacation of 1793 George Brummell
jf\went to Oxford, entering at Oriel.

He did not burn midnight oil over his books : he con-
sumed a considerable quantity of midnight oil, but in
more congenial occupations. In fact, one feels inclined to
think that he wrote for the Newdigate Prize as a joke:
when he missed the prize, his friends said that his failure
was mainly due to his indolence in having neglected to
scan his lines. Yet his copy was considered the second
best!

Oxford was a place for social training rather than a
preparation for scholarship. One could or might
acquire a taste for learning; Charles Fox had acquired it,
and Brummell picked up but just picked up that taste
of reading for the sake of reading that he preserved all his
life and which gave to his quick mind that veneer of
being knowledgeable which is, at all times, so much more
attractive in a gentleman than the weight of erudition.

At Oxford young Brummell read, wrote occasional
stanzas as fashion demanded, ordered his horse at hall-
time, turned a tame jackdaw, with a pair of bands on,
into the quadrangle to parody the Master, and systemat-
ically violated all college rules.

But he progressed in the exclusive habits to which he
had shown himself so inclined at Eton; and discarding the
little that remained of schoolboy frankness, he followed
his inclination to be the paragon of correctness.

He was not yet sixteen, and there must have been a

25

good deal of nawete in this young poseur, so anxious to
appear a Prince of Lordliness. But he was a born leader of
fashions, and his little affectations of speech and manner
were greatly admired. It was, most of all, his natural wit
that fascinated and conquered his fellows : from the day
when, at Eton, he had saved the very life of a poor bargee
by saying to the boys who wanted to throw the fellow
into the river: "Don't do that, in the state of perspiration
the poor fellow is he will most certainly catch a cold!"

At Oxford, Brummell developed those characteristics
for which he became famous aplomb, fastidious neat-
ness of dress and a quick and witty repartee. Was he also
vain? Vanity is the strongest incentive to glory. And
Brummell came into the world with an inordinate love
of glory and a great admiration of the unusual. He ac-
quired that disdain that in future years made him look
at the world with his chin in the air; that mien of superior
majesty that even gave a twinge to the Prince; that con-
tempt for necessities that made Bulwer Lytton put in his
mouth: "Though starving at school, I never took twice
of pudding, and paid sixpence a week out of my shilling
to have my shoes blacked."

The career of George Brummell was decided in those
Oxford days : he would go for the great world and would
be a star in that world. To this intent he chose his friends
with care and discarded them with ruthlessness. If they
were high-born, he was endowed with brighter gifts; if
they had rank or money, he had the prestige of his man-
ners and the flair for saying the right thing at the right
moment. Society and rank would be the background for
his natural talents.

His father's death was the determining factor in George
BrummelPs life. There is an element of fatality in the life

26

of the chosen of the gods. William Brummell had died in
March 1794. He died as a gentleman at his country seat
of Donnington, was buried in St. Martin's-in-the-Fields
and left a gentleman's will, with reasonable bequests to
charity. The bulk of his fortune some 65,000 he left
to his three children, to be theirs at their coming-of-age.

George Brummell lost no time : his inheritance, though,
for the time being only the income therefrom, offered him
an unhoped for opportunity. He shook the dust of aca-
demic studies off his boots, and decided that he would
enlist in a crack regiment and invest his guineas in the
thousand per cent of fashionable life.

He went to London, a mere lad of sixteen, but full of
determination, and so handsome, and the mirror of cor-
rectness. Fortune always favours the audacious. Indeed,
he carried Fortune's crest in his pocket, engraved as a-
seal upon a little burnt topaz at the end of a pocket-
pencil : a tiny ship in full sail, with the waves below, and
around the top the Latin motto Fortuna iuvat.

One day he was brought again to the Prince's presence.
Did the Prince remember the promise he had made to
the boy at Mrs. Searle's farmhouse, one year before ?

In 1794 young Brummell had all the qualities which
most appealed to the extravagant Prince of Wales; he
was good looking, and the Prince adored beauty in man
or woman; his speech was attractive, he had a ready
tongue and an aplomb that was almost amazing in one
so young. He charmed the Prince. He repeated, with the
utmost good grace, that the thing he desired most was to
beg the Prince to permit him to enter his regiment "and
be near him all the time". It was impudent and so
naive!

In a moment of good humour, the Prince nodded a
promise; perhaps he would like to see more of this hand-

27

some and entertaining young man so many others at
Garlton House were dull!

On the i yth June 1794 George Brummell was gazetted
to a cornetcy in the loth Hussars, the Prince's own
regiment.

V

Brummell did not particularly seek a soldier's life, but
life in the loth gave him all the opportunities for the
life he wanted. Dressed one would almost say adorned
in the rich uniform of the Hussars, which suited his
slight and handsome figure to perfection, Brummell
found himself at once in the highest society, in a position
that he had never dreamed of attaining. The attractive-
ness of his character and the perfection of his manners
helped to promote friendships and intimacies with his
brother officers, and the loth Hussars was the regiment of
the sons of dukes and earls: there was Lord Edward
Somerset, son of the Duke of Beaufort; Lords Charles and
Robert Manners, sons of the Duke of Rutland; Lord
Charles Kerr, son of the Duke of Roxburgh; young Bligh,
son of the Earl of Darnley, and young Lumley, son of the
Earl of Scarborough.

The grandson of William Brummell, the valet, entered
this grand world serenely. A far from negligible factor was
the marked patronage of the Prince. The Prince of Wales
was then thirty-two, a handsome young man, in the stiff
and lymphatic way of the House of Hanover : and he was
at the height of his follies. Out of all the dullness and
commonplace of George III, narrow, bigoted and insane,
had come a brood of dissolute children: the Prince of
Wales was the embodiment of the most violent reaction
to the paternal traits. His debts amounted already to
640,000; and for nine years the Prince had been
"secretly 5 ' married to Mrs. Fitzherbert, a liaison that was

29

all the worse because the beautiful widow was a Roman
Catholic. Compared with this, his previous infatuation
for Mary Ann Robinson, the lovely "Perdita" of Drury
Lane, had been no more than a silly boy's mischief, al-
though George III and Queen Charlotte would have
willingly paid five thousand pounds for their son's letters
to the Irish actress. Perhaps the fault rested, as it is often
the case in many families, with George III, who, as a
father, was a queer man: honest, impeccable, but very
obstinate, a man who had boasted to his unruly sons that
he had never had a weakness, and could not permit it in
anyone else. George III had nine sons: the Prince of
Wales, the Duke of York, the Duke of Clarence (who was
to succeed the Prince of Wales as William IV), the Duke
of Kent, father of Queen Victoria, the Duke of Cumber-
land, the Duke of Sussex, the Duke of Cambridge, It was
a good thing that the counties of England offered a fine
choice of titles for such a brood of royal dukes. There
were two other sons, Octavius and Alfred, but they had
died very young. There were also six daughters : Charlotte
Augusta, married to King Frederick of Wurthemberg;
Augusta-Sophia; Elizabeth, married to the Landgrave of
Hesse-Hombourg; Mary, married to the Duke of Glou-
cester; Sophia and Amelia.

George Ill's Prussian system of education had* pro-
duced nothing but detestable results in his children:
nearly all his sons and daughters had chosen to make
clandestine marriages. But the one who most worried the
King was the Prince of Wales.

It is true that his adventure with Mrs. Fitzherbert was
a mere incident in his amorous career, for his love affairs
went on till the end of his life; and whenever he found an
obstacle he lost his head and profited by his grieved
appearance: he had the habit of blood-letting by his

3

physician so as to appear pale and wan before the lady
of his heart!

Maria-Anne Fitzherbert had been a clever woman.
Having sent to the grave in twelve months her first hus-
band, Edward Weld, and disposed of Mr. Fitzherbert
with the same speed, Mrs. Fitzherbert at twenty-six was
in all the splendour of her beauty and very popular in
society. She commenced by spurning all the advances
made by the Prince and, to be on the safe side, went to
live in Lorraine. The Prince bombarded her with letters,
and at last she returned. Then the Prince became drama-
tic, and gashed himself in the chest. He did not die but
he bled like an ox, and the lovely widow, more frightened
than moved, ran away again. Upon this His Royal High-
ness spent his days at Mrs. Armstead's, the mistress of
Charles Fox, howling like a dog to the moon, beating his
head, pulling his hair, rolling on the ground, threatening
to renounce the throne, sell his plate and jewels and
emigrate to America with the woman he loved. At last,
Mrs. Fitzherbert came back, and soon afterwards her
secret marriage to the Prince of Wales was the talk of
London.

One year later, in July 1786, the Prince had set out for
Brighton, accompanied by his morganatic bride and a
trunkload of economical resolutions. The Prince went to
stay at a house in the Steine, which had been leased, pro
forma, by his confidential clerk of the kitchen and general
factotum, Louis Weltje, and released to his royal master
at a rent of 150 a year, an underhand transaction that
saved inconveniences to the Prince who was up to the
topmost fold of his neckerchief in debts. Mrs. Fitzherbert
was settled in a villa close by, and remained there until,
several years later, the architect William Porden built for
her the house which still exists on the Steine.

In the meantime the Prince made his clerk of the
kitchen Weltje buy the property originally leased, and
without delay commenced building the "Marine Pavil-
ion" which was, in later years, to become the fantastic
residence that still stands today, an incredible confec-
tionery of Indian domes and cupolas outside, charmingly
decorated inside in the style that used to be described as
Chinoiserie. The first building, however, designed by
Henry Holland, the architect of the Drury Lane Theatre,
was of simple classical design, consisting of a central
rotunda, with wings to north and south, each with large
bow-windows on both the ground and first floors and
elegant ironwork balconies. That original building still
forms the core of the present pavilion : the salon, as it was
called from the beginning, was already circular as it is in
the later building, and crowned by a shallow dome sur-
rounded outside by classical statues on Ionic columns.
The dining-room was in a wing so close to the kitchen
that the guests used to say that it was "a steaming din-
ner 5 '. The Prince's bedroom was over the breakfast-room;
it was hung with quilted chintz, and the bed hangings
were of silk, chequered green and white. A famous feature
of the apartment was "a broad window, so situated as to
afford the Prince an extensive view of the sea and Steine
as he lies in bed". There was also another feature, not
reported in the chronicles, and it was a secret tunnel
through which Mrs. Fitzherbert could reach the Prince's
bedroom from her own house. Later, Mrs. Fitzherbert
had a new house built in the grounds, with four dif-
ferent cellars : a small beer cellar, an ale cellar, a wine in
casks cellar and a wine in bottles cellar. And there were
many and vast cellars in the pavilion as well. It was a
house of deep potations.

For the already mentioned reason of debts, the Marine

32

Pavilion was purportedly built by Weltje, who leased it
to his royal master for twenty-one years at a yearly rent
of one thousand pounds. At this house the Prince spent
the summer and part of the winter, occupying his time in
hunting, racing, and entertaining his friends, in rooms
which, to be in keeping with his Asiatic Pavilion, he kept
at tropical temperature with an immense stove. After the
fall of the Bastille, in 1789, hundreds of refugees of the
French Revolution had arrived in Brighton, which was
at the time one of the chief cross-Channel ports, and
many of those noble emigres were received and entertained
at the Pavilion.

It was at the Marine Pavilion that young Brummell
was properly initiated to the vagaries and eccentricities
of his royal patron and of his gay Court.

It was a queer sort of Court. Unpopular in London,
where his romantic ardours, his perpetual life of dis-
orders, his theatrical poses were considered too much
even by the fashionable set, the Prince found Brighton
a more congenial residence in which to let himself go and
follow in the steps of his dissolute uncle, the Duke of
Cumberland, who, to spite his brother the King, had
decided with his wife to debauch the heir to the throne;
in this they were helped by the example of the Due de
Chartres, later Philippe Egalite, who before the Revolu-
tion, used to cross the Channel quite often. The Court at
the Marine Pavilion was a strange medley of brilliant
officers, politicians, dancing-masters and pugilists. In fact,
no better was Carlton House in London: Angelo, the
fencer, Jack Radford the stud-groom, Davidson the tailor
and Weltje the clerk of the kitchen were in town the con-
fidants and paramours of His Royal Highness. No better,
in a sense, were Fox or Sheridan. Charles James Fox, the
most gifted of men and the most admired, at twenty-one

33

had been acclaimed head of a great party and a Prince of
Eloquence but he had not waited to be of age to be in
debt to the extent of an astronomical sum. He was cap-
able of remaining at a gaming-table for sixty hours with-
out rest, sleeping and eating on the very table of pharos,
and when he was cleaned out he even borrowed from the
footman of his club. And Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the
fortunate author of The Duenna, The School for Scandal, The
Critic and The Rivals, was such a gambler and so burdened
with debts that his house in Saville Row had to be
guarded by his servants against intruders. With his nose
the colour of royal purple, Sheridan had installed himself
at Carlton House and visited occasionally the Pavilion at
Brighton, to be welcomed as "Sherry". And there were
plenty of ladies, and they were not too particular.

Each night the Prince's table was a symposium of the
usual habitues, a sprinkling of political orators and a posse
of little arrogant scribblers, and eccentric men of the
world such as the Duke of Norfolk, who was all his life a
great friend of Fox. One could meet him at night in the
most ambiguous places, sometimes dressed as a clergy-
man, sometimes as a jockey. He was also a great bibber,
and in The Times of February 1794 one reads : "The Duke
of Norfolk has had an attack of rabies; he cannot stand
the sight of water. His doctors have prescribed him to
look only at wine. The Marquis of Bath and Lord Thur-
low, who were present at the consultation, have decided
to follow the same diet."

There was the Marquis of Queensberry, old and worn
out, who in town used to pass his time looking through
his quizzing-glass at the beauties in the park. And there
was Lord Onslow, alias Tom Tandem, proud of his new
attelage, and driving all day through the city in his black
phaeton with four black horses; and there was Lord

34

Barrymore who dressed in livery the bailiffs that were in
possession in his house. And there were Francis Rowdon,
first Marquis of Hastings, later Lord Moira, future
Governor of Bengal, and the pleasant Lord Cholmon-
deley, a man full of anecdotes, and Lord Coleraine, who
was the black soul of the Prince.

At that time the fashion was to go on the Continent to
acquire a finish and lapolitesse: French taste and French
manners. Many of the London gentlemen had known the
Court of Versailles and the delices of the Petit-Trianon, the
promenade on the terrace, the concerts in the Orangerie,
the magnificence of Fontainebleau and the hunt at Saint
Hubert and Choisy. They knew Lauzun, Richelieu,
Boufflers, the Comte d'Artois, and they tried to live up
to their morals. The Prince did not know Paris, but he
pretended to know all French high society, and used to
mention their names in the most inopportune way.

In this strange milieu, a Court where gravity and
ceremonial went hand-in-hand with vulgarity and drol-
lery, young Brummell found it easy to progress; indeed,
he realized that it would be within his grasp to become
the leader.

35

VI

A for regimental duties, Brummell did little or none.
He was so much with the Prince that he was seldom
present with the corps, to the extent that he did not know
his own troops : all he knew was that one of his men in the
front rank had a very large blue nose, that was for Brum-
mell a beacon. One day this man was transferred to an-
other troop, when Brummell was seen to arrive, late as
usual, and finding the regiment already in line he rode up
and down looking for the man with the blue nose; until
at length he stopped opposite the nose. "How now, Mr.
Brummell!" bawled the Colonel. "You are with the
wrong troop." "No, no," muttered Brummell, looking at
the blue nose. "I know better than that; a pretty thing
indeed if I did not know my own troop! 53

His air of gentle impudence, his wit and refinement dis-
armed everyone. One night at a ball given by a great
Law Lord in Russell Square, a Miss J, a great beauty who
afterwards became Lady G.H., refused all invitations to
dance, till, late in the evening, Cornet Brummell was
announced : he made his bow to her, and the lady, who
had probably been waiting for him, rose from her chair
and giving her hand to the brilliant officer, was soon
figuring among the crowd of dancers. Later in the even-
ing, Brummell asked a friend who might be the ugly man
near the chimney-piece. "Surely", answered the friend,
"you know the master of the house!" Quickly came the
reply: "No, how should I ? I was never invited."

One day he drove into the barrack-yard in his carriage,

36

with four post-horses. "Hallo, George," called a brother
officer from the messroom window, "when did you take
to four horses ?" "Only since my valet gave me notice
for making him travel with a pair/ 3

Army life at Brighton was a gay farandole. Events of
the war across the Channel were celebrated with afeu-de-
joie and great dinners with the Prince at the Pavilion or
at the Castle Tavern. The Prince did all he could to
ingratiate himself with the Brighton folk: gave them con-
certs with his own band of musicians, and once he had a
marvellous tent put up at great cost, and in this tent he
entertained his friends in martial style. Mrs. Fitzherbert
used to enliven military parades by attending in her
phaeton, sometimes on horseback, dressed in the Prince's
uniform. Most of the officers were accompanied by their
ladies, either official or unofficial wives. The most fashion-
able courtesan of the day, Harriette Wilson, was often in
residence at Brighton under the protection of the young
Marquis of Worcester. Generals and high foreign officers
would ride down from London, inspect the Prince's regi-
ment and spend a gay night at the Pavilion. The Prince
enjoyed these visits immensely; the Public Advertiser re-
corded that his principal amusement was in manoeuvring
his regiment.

In April of 1 795 the regiment was told that they were
needed at the end of the month for a very important occa-
sion. The Prince was to be married to the Princess Caro-
line of Brunswick. A party of the regiment, commanded
by Lord Edward Somerset, escorted the Princess from
Greenwich to St. James's Palace.

At the august ceremony, on April 8th, Cornet Brum-
mell was in personal attendance upon the Prince as
chevalier d'honneur, and after the wedding he went down
with the royal pair to Windsor, He gave a description of

37

the honeymoon that was in strong contrast with the one
given by the Princess herself in her Diary illustrative of the
times of George the Fourth.

One feels inclined to believe BrummelL He went, the
morning after the wedding, to take the Prince's orders
while His Royal Highness was at his dressing-table and
the impression he received from the conversation with the
Prince was a most favourable one: "The young couple
appeared perfectly happy and satisfied with each other,
particularly the Princess, who was then a very handsome
and desirable-looking woman. "

According to other sources the Princess Caroline was a
sort of good-hearted but crude young woman, brought up
in one of the smaller German Courts, and far from suited
to the tastes of her bridegroom or of his entourage. Lord
Malmesbury had been sent to her father's Court to escort
her to England, and he confessed to friends that he had
not been able during the journey to persuade her to wash
adequately or to change her underclothes frequently
enough. And Princess Caroline loved badinage in the
wrong places. The match was doomed from the start.

However, from Windsor Brummell accompanied the
Prince and his bride to Brighton for the summer. His
collection of songs and stories served him well he played
with grace and ease the Boccaccio to the Prince's Court.

Nine months after the royal wedding, on yth January
1796, a child was born, Princess Charlotte. But Caroline
was frivolous, the Prince was fickle ; they bored each other.

At the end of April the Prince wrote to Caroline that
neither should be held answerable to the other because
nature had not made them suitable to each other. He
wanted peace; he proposed that their intercourse be re-
stricted to tranquil and comfortable society. The Princess
complied.

38

VII

What was it that made Brummell soon tire of mili-
tary life? Some beaux esprits said he wanted to
emancipate his head from hair-powder which was still
worn in the army, while it had been gradually falling
into disuse in society, since Pitt had laid a tax upon it
three years before. Lord William Murray, a son of the
Duke of Atholl, had taken out a patent in 1796, for mak-
ing white powder from horse-chestnuts so as to evade
Pitt's impost on powder made from flour; but the Duke
of Bedford and his friends had pledged themselves to for-
feit a sum of money if any of them wore their hair tied
and powdered, and in September of 1795 a general crop-
ping and washing and combing out of hair took place at
Woburn Abbey in the very room which for so long had
been dedicated to powder-puffs.

Others said that Brummell, in 1798, was not at all
anxious to seek "a reputation at the cannon's mouth" for
the cause of suffering humanity in that disturbed state of
Europe.

Maybe there was no reason at all. Late one evening in
the early part of 1 798 the news reached Brighton that the
loths were to be transferred to Manchester. Early next
morning Captain Brummell for the Prince's patronage
had enabled him to progress rapidly and be promoted to
the rank of Captain on the ist June 1796 made his way
to the Prince, who expressed some surprise that his friend
Brummell should pay him a visit at such an early hour,
"The fact is, Your Royal Highness, I have heard that we

39

are ordered to Manchester. Now you must be aware how
disagreeable this would be to me. I could really not go :
think. Your Royal Highness, Manchester! Besides, you
would not be there. I have, therefore, with Your Royal
Highness's permission, determined to sell out. 35 It was all
very tactful, and with such a touch of romantic flattery.
"Oh, by all means, Brummell, do as you please/ 5

So ended George BrummeU 3 s career in the most dash-
ing regiment in the Army. And he was not yet of age,
barely twenty years old.

The human wreck in the dejected hotel room remem-
bered it quite well. The house at No. 4 Chesterfield
Street had very soon become a rendezvous of the fashion-
able elite. In the sitting-room on the ground floor one
could find, towards midday, the most elegant men of
London, envying the privileged ones who were allowed
upstairs, to contemplate the Beau completing his toilet.
Now and then Robinson the valet would come down-
stairs carrying over his left arm a score of cravats: "Our
failures," he would say, smiling, and disappear through
the pantry.

Sometimes the Prince of Wales would arrive and talk
with his friend or ask his opinion about a new coat. Often
the discussions would extend until the hour of dinner,
when the Prince would condescend to remain. More than
once the Beau reduced the Prince to despair by a sarcas-
tic comment on his clothes. Once the Prince began to
blubber when told that Brummell did not like the cut of
his coat !

Then the Beau would sail out, to his club or for a stroll
in Bond Street as far as St. James's, invariably dressed in
a blue coat, a buff-coloured waistcoat, and either lace
boots or light pumps. His trousers were black, closely

40

fitting and buttoned above the ankle. His charming bear-
ing and perfect figure were his chief attractions.

He was not particularly handsome: he was fair, almost
red-haired, with a lofty brow, a thin sharp nose which he
carried much in the air, his lips slightly compressed, his
clear eyes of an indefinable shade a little quizzing with
a strange expression of disdain and alert irony; but he was
about the height of Apollo and the proportions of his body
were perfect, whilst his hands were particularly well
shaped, "he could indeed have found an engagement to
perambulate France from fair to fair to personate the
statuary of the ancients" but he was incomparably dis-
tinguished from head to foot.

In two years George Brummell had become the leader
of London fashions. How had he done it? The choice of
residence had been most apt : it was opposite the apart-
ment occupied for a time by the witty George Selwyn,
one of the elite of fashion whose fame Brummell had soon
caused to wane. In fact, the settling in London was the
determining decision of his life it set him on the threshold
of history.

The year he had left the army career, he had come into
possession of his estate. Quite modest, barely some
30,000, perhaps not equal to his position : many of his
noble friends had income many times his modest capital.

But the splendour of George Brummell was intellectual,
and his power was his intelligence.

He had purchased a few good horses; had provided
himself with a good cook; in his rooms he gave some
excellent dinners at which guests were as carefully chosen
as the wines, and like his companions he was fond of
"deep drinking' 5 , seeking the emotions to be found in the
emptied glass; but even with one foot in the chasm of

41

inebriation he could remain the master of his wit and of
his elegance. There was in him something that attracted
and captivated the attention of a great epoch, an achieve-
ment which is not attained merely by the graceful wear-
ing of splendid clothes. Indeed, Brummell attached much
less interest than has been supposed to the art of dressing ;
much less than many other men. His tailors were Schweit-
zer and Davidson, of Cork Street, who were also tailors to
the Prince, and a German tailor named Meyer who had
his shop in Conduit Street, but they were not fathers of
his fame. Brummell scorned to share his fame with his
tailors; he considered it much better to trust alone in the
nameless grace of polished ease, which he possessed to a
remarkable degree.

From the outset he ruled by his perfection of dress and
manners: it was at that time that he coined the great
axiom of the man of fashion: "To be really elegant you
must not be noticed. "

History came to call him the Prince of Dandyism; but
the term Dandy suggests vulgarity: a "dandy" used to be
a taproom measure, and in Johnson's Dictionary the
nearest approach to the word is the dandelion, certainly
a vulgar flower. Moreover, in the matter of dress the
Dandies were given to extravagances, such as excessive
padding, trousers containing cloth enough for a whole
suit, collars sawing off the wearer's ears with the corners
threatening to put out the eyes, wrist-bands intruding
upon his plate, and a hundred other eccentricities, like
the Green Man of Brighton who, a few years later, walked
out every day dressed in green from head to foot, green
suit, green shoes, green gloves, green handkerchief, green
hat, till one fine day the Green Man jumped from his
window.

When Brummell came upon the London scene at the

42

end of the eighteenth century, men's dress had become
exceedingly slovenly. A few years previously, refinement
of dress had been an actual mania, the followers of this
cult being called Macaronis, a name first given to those
who had done the Grand Tour and visited Naples : young
Charles Fox devoted himself passionately to the Maca-
ronic cult, wearing a huge wig with a tiny three-cornered
silk hat absurdly poised upon it, and shoes with red heels
and the rest of his dress as the caricatures of the period
depict him.

But later on Fox and his friends affected a style of
neglect, throwing a sort of discredit on proper attire. This
neglect spread from the House of Commons to the clubs
of St. James's and to all society. In 1794, with the
triumphant era of Jacobinism and Equality in France,
men's dress in London seemed to be perishing. The formal
dress with knee breeches and buckled shoes, which till
then was worn by all gentlemen and persons of note,
became confined to Court levees and drawing-rooms, and
gentlemen took to wearing pantaloons, cropped hair and
shoe-strings; buckles and ruffles almost disappeared, to-
gether with the hair-powder. Even the ladies, having cast
off their tresses, now exhibited heads a la victime and a la
guillotine. Only on the pavements of Bond Street did the
Macaronis make a great display of their enormous wigs
tied up behind and their coloured stockings, while the
Muscadins, notwithstanding the general horror of all that
came from France, had adopted the latest Paris fashion,
with the very long tail coat, the tail of hair, and the wide
stock surrounding the chin with waves of muslin a
fashion reminiscent of the Incrqyables. Bond Street, built
in 1686 under Sir Thomas Bond of Peckham, Controller
of the Household of the Queen Mother, was now the
fashionable promenade of all London; Laurence Sterne

43

lived in Bond Street on the first story of No. 41 , Sir
Thomas Lawrence lived at No. 24, Lord Byron always
put up at Stevens's Hotel, No. 18; one could see Lord
Sandwich's that inveterate gambler who invented "the
sandwich" so that he could go on with his gambling with-
out stopping to eat and Fox's chairs and Walpole's
carriage, or Sheridan crossing from his house in Saville
Row and going to Brooke's.

The Prince of Wales had, since his youth, assumed the
position of leader of fashion, but the results were far from
satisfactory. The Prince's first attempt in fashion was to
wear a new kind of shoe buckle, which he had invented,
a magnificent affair, really quite new, and of which he
was very proud, for this buckle which was only one inch
wide, was five inches broad, reaching almost to the
ground on either side of the shoe. At the first Court ball
the Prince attended he dazzled all the company with the
splendour of his dress : a coat of pink silk-damask with
white cuffs, a waistcoat of white satin embroidered with
white foil and adorned with a profusion of French paste;
and his hat was ornamented with two rows of steel beads,
with a button and loop of steel and cocked in a new mili-
tary style. When he had taken his seat in the House of
Lords, the Prince had worn black velvet, embroidered
with gold and pink spangles and lined with pink satin;
his shoes had pink heels and his hair was much pressed at
the sides and fully frizzed, with two smart curls at the
bottom. Even now, at the age of thirty- three, he had not
learned restraint in dress, and at a great ball at Brighton
he appeared in a velvet suit of a dark colour with green
stripes, superbly embroidered down the front and seams
with a wide embroidery of silver flowers mingled with foil
stones ; the waistcoat was of white and silver tissue em-
broidered like the coat; the garter ribbon was fastened

44

with a shoulder-knot of diamonds, and on his chest glit-
tered a profusion of Stars and Orders.

Also for outdoor or ordinary wear the Prince loved a
luxurious wardrobe. In fact, he spent a fortune in dress.
Often a plain coat, after repeated alterations by David-
son the tailor, who journeyed to and from London and
Windsor, would cost 300 before it actually met with the
Prince's approval. In his lifetime he assembled an im-
mense array of coats and vests and breeches and topcoats,
and kept them in his wardrobe year after year, a vast and
incredible collection of clothes of which he was enor-
mously proud, and on which he had spent a fantastic
sum. After his death they were sold for barely 15,000.

Some of the Prince's friends copied his splendour, but
by 1 790 Charles Fox had discarded the fopperies, the long
curls, the spying-glass, the red heels and his bouquet that
was nearly large enough for a maypole: now Fox wore
the blue frock-coat and the buff waistcoat that were to
become the uniform of the Whigs, and Fox often wore
them till they were threadbare. Yet the Whigs had the
patronage of the Prince, and Fox, who lodged in St.
James's Street, held a levee of his followers and of the
members of the Gambling Room at Brooke's. Rarely
purified by ablutions and wrapped in a fouled nightgown
open to reveal his hairy chest, with his hair dishevelled,
he dictated his politics which the heir to the throne im-
bibed with gusto.

The advent of George Brummell in London had
changed all this slovenliness of dress. Backed by the
Prince, Brummell laid down the law.

The first follower, or disciple, of Brummell was the
Prince himself. The Prince was vain, extremely vain of
what he considered his exceptional good looks, and per-

45

haps he found the new style set out by Brummell particu-
larly becoming to himself. For although he showed a great
love for music and played the 'cello ' 'better than any
prince in Europe" and was quite proud of playing with
Rossini (whom he used to put out of tempo), and liked
singing and painting, his strongest inclination was for
dress. He was, indeed, portrayed in every costume and
every imaginable dress, with powdered wig and without
it, with or without a tail, with wigs fair, brown or black,
dressed as a Hussar, a Dragoon, a Field Marshal, or in
the knee-breeches and stockings of black silk with the
Garter above his knee.

Brummell chose a course middle- way between the ex-
travagance of the Prince himself and the utter neglect
prompted by the eccentricities of Fox, And BrummelPs
success was achieved by the poise he possessed in a
unique way. Maybe his poise was a pose, and Brummell
knew the full value of pose, that pose and poise which,
combined with a touch of impudence, impressed the
world to the full. He created his own legend, and im-
posed it upon the world. Probably not one-tenth of that
legend was true; but it was believed as gospel, and it still
survives today.

VIII

It was said that Brummell lived for the art of dressing.
It was said that every day he spent long hours in his
dressing-room; that his morning toilet was a most elab-
orate affair; that he was never guilty of deshabille] that he
treated his dressing as a cult or a profession and, like a
true man of business, he devoted the best and earliest
hours of his day to his toilet. His dressing-room was like
an artist's studio, in w r hich he daily prepared that elab-
orate portrait of George Brummell which was to be ex-
hibited for a few hours in the clubrooms and the salons,
only to be taken to pieces again and again created in a
different style for the evening. The batterie de toilette was of
fine silver and included a spitting-dish, for its owner
c 'could not spit into clay".

It is to this early period of BrummelPs reign that be-
long the incredible and often fantastic stories: that his
gloves were made by two different men, one for the
thumbs and the other for the fingers and the rest of the
hand; that it took him a couple of hours to wash; that
after shaving he plucked out all superfluous hair with a
pair of tweezers and a dentist's mirror. One day a young
man, who was fascinated by the gloss of his boots begged
Brummell to give him the recipe he used for blacking
cc Blacking, my dear sir? Well, you know, I never use
anything but the froth of champagne." And to another
who asked him the address of his hairdresser: "I have
three : the first is responsible for my temples, the second
for the front and the third for the occiput." As Madame

47

de Stael said: "Quand il s*agit de Brummell la maniere dont
il coupait ses angles est importante : Fame se mele a tout!"

Yet, the secret of BrummeH's elegance was simplicity
and cleanliness. "No scents/' he used to say, "but plenty
of fresh linen and country bleached." He made a point of
boasting that he changed his shirt three times a day, and
that he sent his linen to be laundered in the country, for
the country air and sun bleached it and gave it a unique
fragrance !

It indeed required plenty of linen and fragrantly fresh
to perform the miracle of the famous cravat that he in-
vented. The neckcloth, or stock as it was also called, was
then a huge cumbrous wrap, worn without stiffening of
any kind, clinging to the neck and bagging in front. In a
moment of inspiration Brummell decided to have his
muslin starched. It took infinite pains, hours and days of
patient toil to reach the miracle of this perfect cravat : but
it was a stroke of genius.

The method by which the result was attained has been
recorded by his faithful disciples: "The collar, which was
always fixed to the shirt, was so large that, before being
folded down, it completely hid his head and face, and the
white neckcloth was at least a foot in height. The first
coup d'archet was made with the shirt collar, which he
folded down to its proper size; and then, standing before
the looking-glass, with his chin poked up towards the
ceiling, by the gentle and gradual declension of his lower
jaw he creased the cravat to reasonable dimensions, the
form of each succeeding crease being perfected by using
the shirt which he had just discarded."

It was an entertaining sight to see Brummell perform-
ing this delicate transient masterpiece. Quickly and deftly
he would wind the cravat round his neck and tie the knot,
pull the collar down over the cravat, and slowly lowering

48

his chin he would crease the cravat to the proper height
by the most simple and natural method in the world. Per-
formed in the twinkling of an eye, the result must be suc-
cessful at the first attempt or not at all. The least mis-
judgment in the pressure of the chin would spoil the effect,
and another fresh cravat would have to be inserted again
and tied. Yards and yards of starched muslin were tied
and discarded each day. As Robinson the valet said:
"Our failures. 53

The success of the cravat in London was tremendous.
The first time Brummell appeared with his starched neck-
cloth it created a sensation. Nothing else was talked of for
days in fashionable circles. In the clubs, members courted
George Brummell for the grace and favour of a lesson in
tying the new cravat. But no one ever succeeded in reach-
ing BrummelPs perfection. The secret of the pressure of
the chin and the final touches with the hands covered by
the discarded shirt was never revealed. Indeed, some went
to such exaggeration in the matter of stiffness that the
cravat might have been laughed out of court had not
Brummell himself delivered a devastating rebuke. One
night, at Brooke's, he asked the footman: "Is Lord
Worcester here ?" The nobleman was seated next but one
to Brummell, but his face was almost lost in the mounting
creases of his super-starched cravat. "Yes, sir, 55 replied
the waiter. After a pause Brummell said: "Is his lordship
ready?" "Yes, sir." "Then tell him that I drink his
health," and raised his glass without turning his head.

The cravat became the object of caricatures and lam-
poons. One anonymous author wrote a satirical brochure
entitled Neckdothiana, in which all the possible and im-
possible variations of the cravat were described: the
Oriental Tie (couleur de la cuisse d'une Nymphe ennuite], the
Mathematical Tie, the Osbaldiston Tie, the American

49

Tie (the best colour is Ocean Green), the Napoleon Tie,
the Mail Coach Tie, the Trone d 5 Amour Tie (couleur yeux
de jeune fille en extase), the Irish Tie, the Ballroom Tie
(blanc d' innocence virginde), the Horse-collar Tie, the
Hunting Tie (couleur Isabelle], and the Maharatta Tie
(couleur peau d* Ispahan).

No perfumes, had said Brummell; and in a period when
baths were not common and gentlemen recoursed to dis-
tilled eau-de-roses to cover their lack of morning ablu-
tions, George Brummell said : no perfumes but plenty of
fresh linen and country washing.

Lord Byron once described Brummell to Leigh Hunt
as having nothing remarkable in his style of dress except
a certain exquisite propriety. Cleanliness was the touch-
stone with which Brummell' s acquaintances were invari-
ably tried; to detect in them any variation from that vir-
tue, which he placed higher than godliness, was enough
to make him decline any further intercourse with them.
One day one of his friends asked him how he had passed
a day with a certain family and what sort of people they
were : "Don't ask me, my dear fellow/ 3 replied Brummell ;

"I actually found a cobweb in my night-pot "It was

probably after this experience that Brummell took to
keeping a travelling one, in a folding mahogany case, with
a carpet bag for the same. He objected to country gentle-
men being admitted to his club, because their boots stank
of horse-dung and bad blacking. It was his passionate love
of cleanliness that made him object to the prevailing de-
votion to stables, dog kennels and coachmanship.

His morning dress was similar to that of every gentle-
man Hessian boots and pantaloons, or topboots and
buckskins, with a blue coat and a light or buff-coloured
waistcoat; of course fitting to perfection. In the evening

5

he wore a blue coat and white waistcoat and black panta-
loons: the trousers which opened at the bottom of the leg
and were, after being put on, closed tightly by buttons
and loops, were suggested by Brummell to his tailor
Meyer: Brummell was the first to wear them and they
immediately became the fashion. With these trousers he
wore, for the evening, striped silk stockings and carried an
opera hat. His sedan-chair was always brought to the
foot of his staircase, and from there he was carried im-
maculate to the hall of the house he deigned to visit.

BrummelPs good taste was gospel to his tailors: to a
nobleman who went to Schweitzer and Davidson to be
properly rigged out and asked the tailors what cloth they
would recommend. "Why, sir," said old Davidson, "the
Prince wears superfine, and Mr. Brummell the Bath coat-
ing. Suppose, Sir John, we say Bath coating. I think Mr.
Brummell has a trifle the preference."

Nothing was too trivial for Brummell to achieve the
perfect result. As he could not induce his valet to polish
properly the edge of his boots, where the sole met the
uppers, he took brush and blacking and himself gave a
demonstration of how it should be done, and finally
issued instruction that the soles of the boots must be
polished as well as the uppers. A minute speck upon the
white of his neckcloth or shirt was enough to send it back
to the washerwoman.

He never wore anything extravagant, no white satin
and dove-colour. Brummell disposed for ever of those who
mistake eccentricity for elegance: "If John Bull turns to
look after you, you are not well dressed, but either too
stiff, too tight, or too fashionable." He was the quietest,
plainest and most unpretending dresser. It was the total
absence of all peculiarity and a rigid adherence to the
strictest rules of propriety in costume which gained for

him the homage due to his undisputed taste. He eschewed
colours, trinkets and gewgaws. His clothes were exquisitely
made and, above all, adapted to his person. He put them
on well, too: but for all this there was no striving for
effect; there was an unusual absence of show in his
appearance.

The simplicity of BrummelPs dress, like simplicity in
writing, was only achieved with great artifice. It was a case
of the perfect art which conceals art; that effect of spon-
taneity which can be achieved only by taking infinite
pains. The style he affected misled many men into think-
ing that they had only to copy him to achieve the same
effect; they did not know that the distinction of his dress
was part of the distinction of Brummell himself, his own
and inimitable.

The days when a man of quality was recognizable by
his dress had ended with the French Revolution. It was
BrummelPs genius to reveal to men that a man in plain
clothes could walk as a king.

IX

For England it was an epoch of great wars on the seas
and on the Continent, and of profound social rumb-
lings inside the country; and yet, it was also a time of
unequalled frivolities.

At the end of 1792 the French had already begun hos-
tilities by laying an embargo on all British shipping in
French ports, and in February 1793 England had re-
taliated by acting in the same manner, although there
were more British ships in French ports than French
ships in English ports.

In February, after the message of King George III to
Parliament, war was actually declared a war that was to
last twenty-two years. The Duke of York, Colonel of the
Guards, was made General, and he addressed the regi-
ments and told them that he would accompany them to
Holland. The war was to last until after Waterloo; un-
popular and yet stubbornly fought, like all British wars
in history. King George III was ill. The King's illness was
described for many years as "the most painful event 53 ,
painful in more than one way, for the King was mad and
the Prince of Wales was, many people thought, no saner
than the King : the Bill to make the Prince a Regent went,
for years, in and out of Parliament. It was, indeed, the
issue of the two great contending parties and leaders : Fox
and Pitt. Luckily, now and then the physicians reported
that the King was "recovering from his malady 55 .

The Revolution in France still continued, and London
saw the Emigres arriving in increasing numbers, till in 1 794,

53

it was found that the British Fleet had brought off from
Toulon 143877 men, women and children. No wonder that
Parliament voted the Alien Act!

The emigres brought in Parisian fashions, which at that
time were particularly fantastic; and the French Revolu-
tion, although being fought as the enemy, sent in the
Rights of Man. The news of the victories by Lord Howe
and Lord Nelson were duly celebrated; but the misad-
ventures of the troops in Holland were not equally popu-
lar. Never was there an epoch when the lampoonist and
cartoonist were more unbridled. The attire of men
and the Prince's Court appeared too much of a carnival.

Brightelmstone as Brighton was still called was the
place where the fashionable youth congregated, so much
that the new fashions were called Brighton dress. The ex-
travagant clothes ranged from tight lacing to the scara-
mouch; there flourished those curious specimens which
were nicknamed the Macaronis, a home-made macaroni
being called a "Jessamy" the Jessamies being the equiv-
alent of the Victorian "mashers", harmless and rather
effeminate, entirely taken up with the contemplation of
their external appearance. The cocked hat went out, and
the "chimney pot" was inaugurated : alas, at its inception
it was limp, made of felt; but it soon gained strength and
lustre, and although today more rarely seen and smelling
of camphor it still shines.

The Jessamies became the Beaux, a name that soon
gave way to the Dandies. And the "chimney pot" was
worn au naturel, without trace of wig; and the swathed
cravat succeeded the more refined jabot. But for great
functions, such as the King's drawing-rooms, men still
bedecked themselves in great finery : embroidered silk and
silk velvets ; we read of a Mr. Skeffington who, for the
King's birthday of 1 794, wore a brown spotted silk coat

54

and breeches, with a white silk waistcoat richly em-
broidered with silver, stones and a shade of silk, the design
being large baskets of silver and stones, filled with bou-
quets of roses, jonquils, etcetera, the ensemble producing
a beautiful and splendid effect; and of the Marquis of
Lorn wearing a blue and brown striped silk coat and
breeches with a white silk waistcoat embroidered with
dentelle and shades of silk; and of Lord Willoughby de
Broke in a dark-olive spotted silk coat and breeches, with
a white silk waistcoat, and the suit richly embroidered in
blood-coloured stones and many shades of silk.

Mention of hair-powder appears in The Times of
November 1794 (although it may be a libel) that "as a
Frenchman cannot exist without a powdered head, and
meal being so dear in France, the Beaux are under the
necessity of wearing powdered whiting. Rouge is plenty
enough; the ladies therefore, as usual, wear their faces
under red masks." All this was completed by the Prince's
Bow which every man of fashion strained to copy; and no
other style of bowing was ever more ludicrous.

Ladies 5 fashions also were tried at Brighton; and a
series of prints were published recording the amount of
indebtedness ladies owed to Art, to repair the ravages of
Nature. Waists disappeared, and high feathers came in as
adornments of the head, with such a grotesque panache
that the lampoonists wrote that at all elegant assemblies
the lustres and chandeliers were removed and the doors
carried up to the height of the ceilings : for a matter of
expediency, ladies 3 feathers were generally carried in the
sword-case at the back of the carriage ! High heels became
the rage, and towards the end of the century, the fashion
of "nudity" was such that "the most elegant fig-leaves
would be all the rage". Again The Times was writing, in
December 1799 : "The fashion of false bottoms has at least

55

this utility, that it compels our fashionable fair to wear
something."

It was at Carlton House and at the house of the
Duchess of Devonshire that Brummell came into contact
with the most famous of his contemporaries.

Like the Prince of Wales, the Duchess Georgiana of
Devonshire made her house a literary and political salon.
From her childhood Lady Georgiana Spencer had held
promise of being unusually intellectual as well as beauti-
ful; and her sensible and excellent mother (a daughter of
Stephen Poyntz') bestowed the greatest care and exercised
the greatest judgment on the cultivation of every attain-
ment that could improve her daughter's mind and figure.
Her success complete; Georgiana was elegant in mind and
body, although the pietists and moralists might detect in
her a deficiency in strength of character and dignity, for
she was enthusiastic but volatile. Maybe rank, wealth and
beauty had a somewhat ruinous effect; yet, when she
married the Duke of Devonshire, in 1774, Georgiana
Duchess of Devonshire soon appeared as the true model
of the fashionable woman of the eighteenth century, and
the eighteenth century lasted much longer in England
than in France; it extended, in England, into the nine-
teenth, both in dress and manners and divisions of society
in classes and castes.

At her marriage, Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire was
only seventeen years of age at that time aristocratic per-
spective husbands had a preference for "sweet seventeen"
and placed by an indulgent husband in possession of
the means to gratify all her whims. Soon she became the
authority on every idle fashion ; her name was attached to
every novelty in dress, and even the colour of her car-
riage was known, for several years after her death, as the

56

"Devonshire brown 55 . She introduced Nelson's or Egyp-
tian hats; she translated Petrarch, studied the lyre, dedi-
cated her poetical attempts to the Abbe Delille that
Abbe Delille who went into exile in 1795, and after a stay
at Basle came to London, where he translated Paradise
Lost. Her beauty and brilliancy attracted a host of ad-
mirers and flatterers Charles James Fox, Wyndham,
Burke, Sheridan, Lord Townshend, Fitzpatrick, and
many others, who formed her court in that Devonshire
House in Piccadilly, whose huge wrought-iron gates gave
to the large town-house a delightful country-house ap-
pearance, and to all who still remember it make pain-
fully regretful its disappearance. The fame of the Duchess
Georgiana of Devonshire rests on her attainments and
errors rather than on her beauty; she was one of those
women whose success derives from their charms. That she
was beautiful of face and body was admitted by all, for
her hair, tinged with red, and her face reminded one of
that other beautiful woman from whom Georgiana Spen-
cer descended, Sara Jennings, wife of John Churchill,
first Duke of Marlborough; but her fascination lay in the
grace of her deportment, her irresistible manners, the
seduction of her society.

Politics were in the fashion, and like the Prince of Wales
who professed Whiggism to induce Parliament to pay his
enormous debts, the Duchess's salon was a Whig Club; but
Georgiana was an honest partisan. It has remained a by-
word in the history of English political elections the part
played by the Duchess of Devonshire in Fox's election,
when, in 1784, he began his struggle with Pitt, and the
Duchess Georgiana put a cockade in her hat and a scarf
of the colours of her candidate across her breast, and went
in her carriage to do the round of his constituency, with
Lady Duncannon and the Duchess of Rutland, entering

57

cottages and shops, until the day when she purchased the
vote of a butcher with a kiss.

When the American War broke out, the Duchess
Georgiana was at Tiptree and Warley Camps dressed in
the uniform of the Derby Militia, an example that roused
a military fever amongst the women, which was followed
by a naval enthusiasm after the victories of Howe, Dun-
can and Nelson; and her Aboukir and Nelson bonnets and
head-dresses were all the fashion. On the declaration of
war against France, the Duchess set to work with her
friends to knit flannel waistcoats for the troops exactly as
it happens in our days !

There were bouts of gaming in the Duchess's life, for
she was devoted to faro, the fashionable game of the day;
a passion that brought her into situations greatly detri-
mental to her character and to the dignity of her high
station; and in the short space of three years after her
marriage, her extravagance made her the butt of public
criticism in many pamphlets: the motto of one was:
"Pleased with a feather, tickled with a straw"; yet, be-
tween vagaries and errors she founded at Devonshire
House the coterie of "All the Talents". Fox was the lead-
ing spirit, probably helped on this favour by his devotion
to gambling. To those years belong the episode of the even-
ing when Fox came skipping into his wife's drawing-room
in South Street, and went capering round the room
chanting: "Great run, great run! Vingt-et-un; lucky dog;
tomorrow morning pay the Jews, pay them all!" Unfor-
tunately for him, and for them too, it was Friday night,
and on the Saturday night all the cash that Fox had won
was carried again in bags to his club and there lost again
down to the last sovereign.

Gibbon was one of the Duchess's admirers; in a letter
he wrote eloquently in her praise: "You are much too

58

young to have known Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire,
and therefore felt la belle passion for her, as every man did
in my day. 53

But Georgiana was a poet of no mean wing; her trans-
lation of Petrarch's thirty-fourth sonnet is a remarkable
example of her sound knowledge of the Italian language:

Levommi il mio pensier in parte, otfera
Quella^ ch'io cerco e non ritrovo in terra.

In spirit I had mounted to the sphere
Where she amidst its gentle inmates beam'd,
whom still I fondly seek, but find not here

is creditable for any poet and translator.

The cleverness of Brummell consisted in this, that he
was not a man of extravagance in life, any more than he
was in his dress. He was well aware that he was a person
of comparatively small means; he had, therefore, elected
to live in an elegant but not expensive way.

His house in the Chesterfield Street was furnished and
decorated in the manner suitable to a gentleman, and
Brummell set right away a taste for Buhl furniture and
Sevres porcelain, a preference which he retained all his
life. On the walls there were portraits of Admiral Nelson,
Lord North, the Duke of Rutland and the heroes of the
day. In his small library were prominent the Letters of
Lord Chesterfield^ the Memoirs of the Chevalier de Grammont
and the volumes of the Edinburgh Review. Later, on his
occasional tables he began to assemble his notable collec-
tion of snuff-boxes of great value and beauty. He also had
a beautiful collection of canes. He did not keep a carriage
for town use, and used a sedan-chair to avoid the mud.
Only years afterwards he used a carriage in town. He was
not fond of hunting, but made it a point to have always

59

first-class horses for his use in the country, in the best
conditions, and relied upon a dealer named Fryatt who
bought horses for him.

life in London centred round the clubs and the draw-
ing-rooms, and the summit of social life was the privileged
circle of the Prince's friends at Carlton House, The first
thing Brummell did after settling in London was to be-
come a member of White's.

At the beginning of his career he was generally with the
Prince or with his friends at Brighton, and seldom \asited
the London clubs. But in London it became natural and
advisable to join one or more of the right clubs. At the end
of the eighteenth century a gentleman joined a club as
part of his existence. The membership was not only well
guarded but reserved to the gentlemen who had a definite
position in society; in fact, the total membership of the
clubs at the time amounted to no more than some twelve
hundred. A small world, in which everyone knew each
other and there were no trespassers, for they were all of
the same family and class, almost a caste, what the
Viennese aristocracy so aptly called hof-fahig, the people
of the Palace. A fashionable man walked in Bond Street
and St. James's, and spent many hours at his club. There
were no sports in London, although Lord Byron was fond
of mixing with pugilists ; golf was yet confined to Scotland ;
a man of fashion, when in town, had little to do except to
pay calls, go to receptions or balls and visit his club. The
club was also a place to have a meal, as there were no
restaurants at all. And at his club a gentleman could do
as he pleased, sit down to dinner in morning dress or, if
it pleased him, in his nightdress.

In resigning his commission in the loth Hussars Brum-
mell was elected a member of White's. In 1799 he was
elected also at Brooks's : there is an entry in the Memorials

60

of Brooks's "Mr. Brummell, proposer and seconder Mr.
Fawkener, date of election 2nd April 1799."

Brooks' s was founded by a Mr. Brooks, a wine-mer-
chant and money-lender who had taken over the older
and famous Almack's Club, which had been established
at No. 5 in Pall Mall opposite Marlborough House in
1 764 by a Scotsman, William McCall by name, who how-
ever called himself Almack. The idea of such a venture
occurred to McGall when he saw the success of Mrs.
Cornely's at Carlisle House in Soho Square. Almack had
chosen his site well, obtaining leases of various properties
to the east of Pall Mall Place; he commissioned Robert
Mylne to design a suite of assembly rooms, which actually
were in King Street and were later known as Willis
Rooms; and in February in 1765 the new premises were
opened under the patronage of a royal duke. There were
twenty-seven original members, including the Duke of
Portland, the Duke of Roxburgh, the Earl of Strathmore
and Charles James Fox; and the rules of the club were
certainly quite original, for they decreed that no gaming
should take place in the eating-room on penalty of paying
the whole bill of the members present; that dinner shall
be served up punctually at half-past four o'clock in the
afternoon and the bill be brought in at seven; and that
any member becoming a candidate for any other club
(old White's excepted) should ipso facto have his name
struck out of the book.

Almack's became, at a later period, merely an assembly
for dancing; but originally it was, like all other clubs, a
place for gaming. Yet, Almack's remained to the end a
place of selectness, a club which blackballed with a free-
dom and a capriciousness that made people say that one
could hardly conceive the importance which was at-
tached to getting admission to Almack's, the seventh

61

heaven of the fashionable world. Draconic laws were im-
posed by the patronesses, for Almack's was also a ladies'
club, and once the Duke of Wellington was turned from the
portals of Almack's because he was wearing trousers and
not knee-breeches, which had been made indispensable
by the Committee sitting in conclave.

In 1778 Brooks moved to premises on the west side of
St. James's Street, and formed a new club to which he
gave, as it was customary, his own name. It started with
one hundred and fifty members at the modest subscrip-
tion of four guineas; in 1791 the number had increased
to four hundred and fifty. Brooks's was considered a Whig
Club, as was also White's; but Brooks's was more in the
run, for Charles James Fox, who lived nearby, made a
habit of having his supper-parties catered and wined by
Brooks's; and Mr. Brooks often hastened to the rescue of
a member in financial straits; a generosity that was quite
in contrast with his acumen as a money-lender, and at his
death in 1782 he was in poor circumstances. The greatest
patron of Brooks's was perhaps Fox, who used the club
as his house and made it a seat for his debating society, at
which he would plan his parliamentary campaign. In a
letter of George Selwyn to Lord Carlisle of 2ist March
1782, one reads: "I stayed at Brooks's this morning till
between two or three, and then Charles Fox was giving
audiences in every corner of the room and that idiot Lord
Derby telling aloud whom he should turn out, how civil he
intended to be to the Prince, and how rude to the King."

Also the Prince of Wales was a member of Brooks's, but
later he resigned as a protest against the blackballing of
two of his intimates.

White's derived its name from White's Chocolate
House, which had existed since 1698, five doors on the
west side of St. James's Street coming up from the Palace,

62

In 1733 the house had been destroyed by fire, and the
Chocolate House was removed a few doors higher up : the
fire at White's is recorded in one of Hogarth's plates of a
"Rake's Progress 3 ' representing a room at White's where
the gamblers are so interested in their gaming that they
do not hear the alarm given by the watchmen who are
bursting open the door.

The Chocolate House had become a private club soon
after it was founded, and in 1 736 it numbered amongst its
members the Duke of Devonshire and the Earl of Chester-
field; and in 1745 it was so popular that a second club
was established and called the Young Club to distinguish
it from the Old Club. In 1755 White's, Old and Young,
moved to No. 38 St. James's Street.

There were other clubs : Byron mentions in a letter that
he belonged to the Alfred, the Cocoa Tree, the Union, the
Watier (which, however, was not yet founded at the time
when Brummell settled in London), the Racket's (which
was at Brighton), the Pugilistic, the Owls, and several
others; and there was Boodle's originally called the Savoir
Faire when it was founded in 1 762 at 28 St. James's Street.

All these clubs were famous for the furious gambling;
many old families still suffer from the passion for cards
that had taken hold of their forebears in the Regency
years; it was said of Crockfords that family fortunes
literally ran on the four aces. But in those early years
Brummell did not gamble; he was too busy conquering
his kingdom in society.

The period that went from the end of the eighteenth to
the first twenty years of the nineteenth century was a
livipg thing; it has become almost legendary. It was also
a time of transition, wedged between the two centuries.
The old order of life still survived and the new order,

which found its culmination after Napoleon's fall, was en-
wrapped into a cloak of romanticism that gave colour and
richness of touch also to the fast-moving changes in poli-
tics and social evolution. There was, as it should be, a
"decorative class" of citizens; never the expression
"Upper Ten Thousand" had more accuracy of meaning.
Happy were the times when a gentleman could look at
the wars going on in Europe and on the seas without feel-
ing any democratic qualms! "Bony" and the war against
France was a matter for Parliament and the Admiralty,
as it should be. "Life" had its centre at Carlton House,
and at the Prince's Court the war against Napoleon was
not of paramount interest.

Carlton House had been built exactly facing the present
Waterloo Place in 1709, by Henry Boyle Baron Carleton,
descendant of the Carleton who had been artistic buyer
for Charles I for his collection of pictures. From the
Carleton family Carlton House had come into the hands
of the royal family in 1732, and was the residence of the
Princess of Wales, mother of George III. In 1783 it be-
came the official residence of George Ill's eldest son, the
Prince of Wales, who restored it extensively at an enor-
mous cost, decorating it with a collection of armours of
every age and every country, including the famous swords
of Bayard the Knight sans peur et sans reproche, of the Duke
of Marlborough, of Louis XIV and of Charles II. He also
added to the armours a collection of Flemish pictures, and
a collection of men and women who were certainly not
specimens of virtuous living.

George Brummell became the favourite at Carlton
House for three reasons. The first one was that iie pos-
sessed the qualities most esteemed by the Prince among
things human, youth, and the youth of George Brummell
was set off by the assurance of a man with experience and,

64

able to dominate circumstances. The second one was his
bold and most delicate mixture of impertinence and re-
spect. The third one and probably the one that played
the most important part upon such a superficial and vain
man as the Prince, all taken up by concern about his
personal appearance was the genius of dress.

Carlton House was the summit of London's social life;
ancTat Carlton House George Brummell acted as the
model, guide and mentor to the Prince of Wales.

X

In the briefest of time Bnimmell was the undisputed
King of Society. How did he do it?

He did not reach the summit by his money, for com-
pared with some of his friends he was a poor man. He did
not reach it through the Prince's protection and patron-
age, for the Prince of Wales was free and easy with his
friendship and intimacy with many gentlemen of his en-
tourage, and equally easy he was in dropping them at the
slightest displeasure.

George Brummell became the leader of fashions and
the absolute dictator of London society by his genius.
There are men who are born to rule: George Brummell
was born to rule over the fashions of his times. And he
ruled by his good taste in dressing and manners, and by
his wit and impudence.

It was not merely because he dressed well that he be-
came the leader of society. On the other hand, Brummell
understood instinctively the importance and the influence
of dress upon society. In this respect he was an innovator;
he established for men the modern form of dressing al-
most as we know it today. At a time when men still
dressed in gay colours and there still lingered the knee-
breeches and the silk and velvet coats that until the
French Revolution had been the typical dress of a class,
Brummell launched and imposed the trousers, which he
devised with his German tailor. The prevailing spirit of
revolutionarism may have helped the spreading of this
innovation; but while Pitt in 1802 could still be seen in

66

the streets of Cambridge wearing the cocked-hat of earlier
days, and Charles James Fox also affected the older style,
and Lord Erskine in the same year was breakfasting in a
dark green coat and scarlet waistcoat and silk breeches,
and the Prince of Wales constantly appeared in public
wearing garments of striped green velvet embroidered
with silver flowers and a powdered wig adorned with a
profusion of curls, George Brummell was already chang-
ing the dress of gentlemen to the uniformity of trousers
and a coat which was sober of colour and cloth and relied
for its effect solely on the cut and on the distinction of its
wearer.

But Brummell, as noted, never honored his tailors
by giving his name to cloaks and hats. He had the "name-
less grace of polished ease" that set him high above
other men. His entree to the finest houses in the land was
never disputed ; his friendship wasjcgnadered a privilege
by the bearers of the proudest names, and in this Brunei-

"A ., -. ~ . J ^_,,.. ^i. " .,---'-* -* _

mell was certainly helped by his intimacy with the Prince
and by his few years in the finest regiment.

Perhaps in Lister's novel, Granby, there is the truest and
shrewdest characterization of George Brummell. He had
great powers of entertainment, a keen turn for satire; he
seldom committed himself by praise or recommendation
but left his example to work its way; and could talk down
his superiors with cool confidence. He saw the advantage
of being formidable; he sensed gullibility and without
affecting short-sightedness, he could assume that calm but
wandering gaze which veers, as if unconsciously, round
the prescribed individual, neither fixing nor to be fixed, a
look which perhaps excuses you to the person you cut,
and, at any rate, prevents him from accosting you. He had
both wit and impudence. Impudence is not rudeness : it
is the utmost detachment of the genius who feels himself

67

above all other men. Impudence can manifest itself in
witticisms, or be epigrammatic. Impudence in life is what
an epigram is to a book or a play the leaven of dialogue
and conversation. George BrummelPs disdain for lesser
men expressed itself in supercilious witticism: less than a
century later the last of the dandies,, Oscar Wilde, ex-
pressed the same disdain in epigrams, but the approach of
these two geniuses to life and manners was the same.

The history of Brummell is, indeed, written upon say-
ings, often absurd, like that of Byron who said that he
would rather be Brummell than Napoleon. The real
meaning of such a saying is lost; perhaps Byron meant
that BrummelPs empire of taste and fashions was more
imaginative than Napoleon's empire of countries and
peoples.

Brummell was a mass of contradictions : he could be ex-
quisitely polite and appallingly rude; he could say telling
things or be as gay as a young boy. The clubs resounded
with laughter when Lord Alvanley recounted the story of
how, that afternoon, the Prince of Wales, who had just
received the present of a horse, asked Brummell for his
opinion. Brummell instead of examining the animal in the
usual way, went behind the horse and studied its tail for
a considerable time, till the Prince at last asked him what
he was doing. "Sir/* Brummell answered, "y u should
never look a gift horse in the mouth."

The ladies were anxious to have him at their balls and
parties ; more than one hostess spent anxious hours await-
ing the arrival of Brummell, who would at long last enter
the room : lingering for a short while on the threshold, he
would look round through his spy-glass, then exchange a
few compliments right and left, and depart for another
ball, in his sedan-chair. Brummell disliked coaches and
carriages, considered the vis-d-vis the most inconvenient of

68

conveyances because the steps folded inwardly, and always
used his sedan, which was lined in white satin, all quilted,
with down squabs on the seat, and it had a soft white
sheepskin rug.

ffis^sarcasms, were generally launched at the parvenus
who forced themselves into notice. With his superiors, or
his equals, he was merely witty. When Pitt inquired what
could be done to forward his interests, Brummell simply
requested the Prime. Minister to bow to him in public.

Even Madame de Stael, when she visited London, was
haunted by a dread of his disapprobation, and considered
her failure to please him as the greatest malheur that she
experienced during her residence the next was that the
Prince of Wales did not call upon her! It seems, however,
that Brummell had played upon Mme de Stael the joke
of pretending that his great friend the most indebted Lord
Alvanley was immensely wealthy and a most excellent
prospective husband for her daughter Albertine Liber-
tine as Brummell had nicknamed her, though the girl,
Byron assures us, was perfectly all right.

The businessmen who resided in the City were, as far as
Brummell was concerned, living in an unknown land.
One day when a great merchant requested the honour of
his company at dinner at his home in the City, Brummell
replied: "With pleasure, if you will promise faithfully not
to tell anyone." And to an ex-Secretary of the Admiralty,
who possessed great political and literary talents, but who
had taken residence in the district of Bloomsbury, when
invited to dine in that region Brummell piquantly in-
quired where he was to change horses.

He also could give an agreeable effect to words that
could be very pointed. There was a gentleman in London
who, in his youth, had very beautiful hair, naturally
frizzy, and it was his habit to take the air in the park

accompanied in his curricle by his pretty French poodle.
One day Brummell, who was on horseback, met the man
and the dog driving together, and he hailed the gentle-
man: "Ah, my friend, how do you do? A family vehicle
I see!" In fact, the gentleman, quite well known in the
world, was called by the sobriquet of Mr, Poodle.

At an Ascot meeting Brummell walked his horse up to
the carriage of a lady who, quite flippantly, expressed her
surprise at his throwing away his time on her or running
the risk of being seen talking to a very unfashionable per-
son. "My dear lady," he replied, "pray don't mention it;
there is no one near us."

One night he arrived at the club rather late, and his
friends asked him : "Where did you dine tonight ?" "Dine ?

Why with a person of the name of R s. I believe he

wishes me to notice him, hence the dinner; but to give
him his due, he had begged me to make up the party
myself, and I asked Alvanley, Mills, Pierrepoint, Mild-
rnay and a few others, and I assure you that the affair
turned out quite unique. There was every delicacy in or
out of season. But, my dear fellows, conceive my astonish-
ment when Mr. R s had the nerve to sit down and

dine with us!"

One day a friend met him limping in Bond Street and
asked him what was the matter. Brummell replied that he
had hurt his leg, "and the worst of it is that it is my
favourite leg". Having been asked by a sympathizing
friend how he happened to get a cold, his reply was: "I
left my carriage yesterday evening on my way to town
from the Pavilion, and the infidel of a landlord put me
into a room with a damp stranger!" To an acquaintance
who asked him, during a very unseasonable summer, if
he had ever seen such a one, he replied: "Yes, last
winter."

70

The limit of his impertinence was contained in the reply
he gave when he was asked what sort of a place was a cer-
tain country seat where he had fancied himself invited
and, after one night, had been politely given to under-
stand that he was in error: "It was an exceedingly good
house for stopping one night in."

And his reply when asked at table if he liked vegetables :
"I don't know; I have never eaten them." Then after some
reflection: "No, that is not quite true; I once ate a pea."

But the most famous of his replies so witty that Oscar
Wilde pinched it in full and planted it in the first act of
The Importance of Being Ernest was the one he gave when
someone, while assisting at his levees, asked him which
lake he thought the finest in the Lake District. Brummell
rang the bell for his valet: "Robinson!" "Sir!" "Which of
the lakes do I admire most?" "Windermere, sir." "Ah,
yes! Windermere, so it is. Thank you, Robinson." And
turning to his friend: "Yes, I like Windermere best."

In the great country-houses he was a welcome guest. He
wa^jfreguent visitor of the Duke of Devonshire at Chats-
worth; and rooms were always kept for him at Cheveley,
the seat of the Duke of Rutland. In January 1799 he was
present at the coming-of-age of the fifth Duke of Rutland,
iri company with the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Argyle,
Lord Jersey, the Marquis of Lorne. In fact ? jit Belyoir he
Mcnddf the family 5 \ and his rooms were as sa .? re d

asjhose of the Duke of York. For the coming-of-age of the
Duke of Rutland, the festivities at Belvoir lasted three weeks
and were conducted in a truly ducal scale : fireworks of the
most splendid description were let off in front of the castle,
a whole bullock was roasted on the bowling-green of the
quadrangle and another at the bottom of the hill; but the
weather was so cold that so the chronicles said "while

one side was roasting the other was freezing' 5 . Neverthe-
less, the peasants went in their hundreds to the Duke's
kitchen and servants' hall, and the "brown October"
was not only drunk on the premises but carried away in
pailsful.

Brummell went to skate on the ice clad in a pelisse of
fur, and one morning he was mistaken by the people for
the Prince of Wales and loudly cheered. But Brummeli
was not a great skater and did not rival the Marquis of
Lome in engraving his cipher on the ice. In fact, he hated
personal exertion in any way, and it was difficult to make
him give up a book (he was a great reader) and shoulder
a gun and join in a scramble over hedgerows and ditches.
Nor was he much of a shot. His greatest feat with a gun
was done at Cheveley: the party were contemplating the
magnificent fruits of their shooting, three hundred heads
of game; and Brummell, having accidentally caught sight
of two tame pigeons which had lovingly perched on one
of the chimneys, tempted by a standing shot, carefully
raised his gun and brought them both down. Alas, they
were the pets of one of tlie, servants! He used to recount
it in later years : "The only time I brought down a brace
of birds it was at Cheveley, and they were tame pets. ..."

Neither was he a great rider. Though he kept a stud
of horses, mostly for use at Belvoir, he never \yas a
"Melton man", and his friends were much surprised when
he joined them in the'hunt, for he did not like it; it did not
suit his habits, and his servant could never get him up in
time to join the hounds if it was a distant meet, but even
if the meet was near Brummell would only ride a few
fields, and soon would pay a visit to the nearest farm-
house to satisfy his enormous appetite for bread and
cheese, and then head for home, and say that he "could
not bear to have his tops and leathers splashed by the

72

greasy galloping farmers". And he would lunch with the
Duchess and the ladies at two o'clock and be the most
sociable and amiable companion to them.

He always appeared at the covert side admirably
dressed in a white cravat and white tops to his boots, a
fashion that he had introduced and which superseded the
brown tops; his horses were always in as high condition
as their master's, and the horses were stabled at The Pea-
cock at the bottom of the hill, near Belvoir, under the care
of Fryatt, who was to Brummell more of an agent than
a groom and bought without consulting his master;
in fact, sometimes Fryatt put money into BrummelPs
pockets besides mounting him well. After a few seasons
the stud was removed to Knipton, a charming village
about a mile and a half from Belvoir Castle.

After he had retired from the loth Hussars, Brummell
was tempted to accept a Majority in the Belvoir Volun-
teers raised by the Duke of Rutland ; and during one of his
many visits to Belvoir, a General Officer was sent by the
Horse Guards to inspect the corps : official notification of
time and place was given, and General Binks from Lon-
don arrived to the minute. The men were on parade; the
officers were there; the drums and colour; but Major
Brummell was not there. The indignant General waited
and snorted and then commenced the performance of his
now unpleasant duty, when, almost at the end, Major
Brummell appeared in a scarlet coat coining at speed
across the country, and at long last he was cap-in-hand to
General Binks who addressed the delinquent officer in the
manner of a real martinet: "Sir, this conduct is inexcus-
able; if I remember right, sir, you had once the honour of
holding a Captain's commission under His Royal High-
ness the Prince of Wales, the Heir- Apparent himself, sir!
I should be wanting in my duty, sir, if I did not, this very

73

evening, report this disgraceful neglect of order to the
Commander-in-Ghief as well as the state in which you
present yourself in front of your regiment. You may
retire, sir!"

Brummell bowed in silence, and did retire; but after
going a few paces he turned his horse, returned, and said
in a subdued tone: "Excuse me, General Binks, but in my
anxiety to explain this unfortunate business I forgot to
deliver a personal message that the Duke of Rutland
desired me to deliver when I left Belvoir this morning.
It was to request the honour of your company at dinner."
The General coughed and then cleared his throat to ex-
press his thanks : "Ah, really I feel, and am, much obliged
to His Grace : pray, Major Brummell, tell the Duke I shall
be most happy; and Major Brummell, as to this little
affair, I am sure no man can regret it more than you do.
Assure His Grace that I shall have great pleasure in
accepting his very kind invitation." And they parted,
with broad smiles.

But Brummell had to run in all haste to the castle and
prepare his friend the Duke for an unexpected visitor,
General Binks, whom he had invited on the spur of the
moment, not as an impostor would to get out of a diffi-
cult position, but with all the fun of a schoolboy who, on
being reprimanded by his master, thinks of a sudden :
"Now I will show you one!"

74

XI

We do not find a particular woman in Brummell's
life. There were many women; many of them illus-
trious the Duchess Frederika of York, the Duchess
Georgiana of Devonshire; but there was never one woman
who lit the fire of love and passion in George Brummell.

As he cannot be suspected of sexual inversions at that
time the secret society of homosexuals was not yet such a
feature of London life one can only say that Brummell
did not love anyone but himself. The perfect dandy was
a world unto himself; he could not disarrange his coun-
tenance and perfect poise by succumbing to passions or
falling in love and a man in love, as we all know, is no
longer master of himself.

Brummell, a man uniting all natural and artificial at-
tractions, stopped, as far as women were concerned, at
the threshold of gallantry. It was, in him, a natural atti-
tude. And anyone who knows women realizes that this
was certain to prove his very power over them: he
wounded the romantic pride of those proud ladies and
set their minds dreaming.

Thus the King of Fashion had no mistress. A better
dandy than the Prince of Wales, Brummell was without
a Mrs. Fitzherbert; a Sultan without a handkerchief. No
illusion of the heart or of the senses could modify or sus-
pend his judgment. And a word from George Brummell
was final he was the autocrat of opinion. At the risk of
being overheard in the middle of a ballroom, a Duchess
(the hauteur permitted to this rank in London's drawing-

75

rooms is well known even in these days) told her daughter
to be careful of her manners and her replies should Mr.
Brummell deign to address her; for at that first phase of
his life he still mixed with the crowd of dancers at balls,
where the most beautiful sat awaiting his invitation. Later
on he abandoned the habit of dancing, as too common-
place for him. He used, then, to stand a few minutes at the
door of a ballroom, glance round, criticize in a sentence,
and disappear. He knew the value of the maxim: in
society stop until you have made a good impression, then

be off.

His youth, his brilliance, his charming and cruel wit,
abused and adored by women, inspired many passions:
but nothing transpired. Lady Jersey has been mentioned
as one whom he was supposed to have taken away from
the Prince. But Lady Jersey remained BrummelFs loyal
friend, and love affairs ending in friendship are rare. So
far as we know, only one woman used words which con-
ceal (or reveal) a disappointed passion: the courtesan
Harriette Wilson; but she was probably more jealous of
BrummelFs fame than of his heart. "It became", she
wrote in her Memoirs, "the fashion to court BrummelFs
society, which was enough to make many seek it who
cared not for it, and many more wished to be well with
him, through fear, for all knew him to be cold, heartless
and satirical. 33 But the courtesan Harriette Wilson be-
longed to those women who, in the words of Barbey
d'Aurevilly, would never forgive him for being as graceful
as they, and likewise many men would never forgive him
for not being, themselves, as graceful as he.

Brummell was certainly once on the verge pf.matri-
mony^But, for some reasons that were never disclosed, the
idea was negatived by the girFs parents. It is also said that
once, though not with a lady of rank, he nearly "'passed

through a gold ring", for he interested the damsel suf-
ficiently to induce her to consent to elope with him during
a "ball in Grosvenor Square; but a servant of the girl's
mother caught them in the next street. It is said that when
a friend rallied him for his lack of success in another matri-
monial speculation, and pressed him for the reason for
his failure, Brummell replied with a smile: "What could
I do, my good fellow, but cut the connection? I dis-
covered that Lady Mary actually ate cabbage!"

On the other hand, his honesty in love affairs was quite
extraordinary. One morning at a country-house, he came
into the library of his noble friend and host, and told him
with much warmth that he was very sorry indeed but he
must positively leave the house that morning. "Why, you
were not to go till next month !" said the host. "True,
true," replied Brummell anxiously, "but I must be off."
"But what for?" "The fact is I am in love with your
Countess." "Well, my dear fellow, never mind that: so
was I twenty years ago. Is she in love with you?" Brum-
mell hesitated, and said faintly: "I believe she is." "Oh!
That alters the case entirely," replied the Earl; "I will
send for your post-horses immediately."

One woman has left us a description of Brummell as
a lady's man, herself a woman of the greatest interest
Lady Stanhope. Lady Hester Stanhope was one of the
most intriguing and fascinating characters of that period,
which was so rich in personalities who, for freedom or for
love, lived the most extraordinary lives. Brought up at her
father's country seat of Ghevening in Kent, at twenty-
four years of age she had run away from her father's
house owing to his excitable and wayward disposition;
and three years later, in 1803, had taken charge of the
house of her famous uncle, William Pitt. Lady Hester was
a woman of beauty and talents; she possessed also con-

77

siderable business acumen, and ran her uncle's affairs
when Pitt was out of office. On his death she was granted
a pension of 1,200 a year. She then took house in Lon-
don, in Montagu Square; but her too-pointed wit made
her many enemies, and in 1810 she left England for ever.
After many wanderings Lady Hester settled among the
Druses on Mount Lebanon, and from her lonely house of
Djoun, a few miles from Sidon, dressed in the garb of a
sheik, she wielded an almost absolute authority over the
surrounding district, maintained by her commanding
character and by the Arabs 5 belief that she possessed the
gift of divination. The memoirs of Lady Hester Stanhope,
narrated, in six lengthy volumes, by her physician Dr.
Meryon, present a most lively picture of this strange
woman's Kfe and of London in the first quarter of the
nineteenth century.

That Lady Stanhope was on terms of close friendship
with Brummell is indicated by many episodes and refer-
ences. One day. Lady Stanhope's carriage was in Bond
Street, and Brummell was leaning upon the door talking
with Lady Hester, whispering to her the secret of a mar-
vellous perfume, when there walked by a young Colonel
whose name was then in all mouths. "Who ever heard of
his father?" murmured Brummell with his customary
superciliousness. "And by the way, 55 replied Lady Hester,
"who ever heard of yours ?" But Brummeirs repartee was
ever ready: "Ah, my dear Lady Hester, who indeed ever
heard of my father, and who would have heard of me, if
I had been anything but what I am? It is my folly that
is the making of me. If I did not impertinently stare
duchesses out of countenance and nod over my shoulder
to a prince, I should be forgotten in a week; and if the
world is so silly as to admire my absurdities, you and I
may know better, but what does that signify ?"

78

How true, how true ! This anecdote is given in several
memoirs, and it might have been merely an invention of
the witty Lady Hester; but how truly it epitomized the
hero of the day! There is a letter of Lady Stanhope to
George Bnimmell, dated soth August 1803, an( i bearing
the Cheltenham postmark: "If you are as conceited as
formerly, I shall stand accused of taking your groom, to
give me an opportunity of writing to you for his charac-
ter. All the inquiry I wish to make upon this subject is, to
be informed whether you were as well satisfied with James
Ell when you parted with him, as when he had Stiletto
under his care. If so, I shall dispatch him at the end of
next week, with my new purchases to Walmer (the official
residence of Mr. Pitt, as Warden of the Cinque Ports),
where I am going very shortly. You may imagine I am
not a little happy in having it in my power to scamper
upon British ground, although I was extremely pleased
with my tour, and charmed with Italy.

"I saw a good deal of your friend Capel at Naples; if he
fights the battles of his country by sea as well as he fights
yours by land, he certainly is one of our first commanders.
But of him you must have heard so full an account from
Lord Althorp, for they were inseparable, that I will only
add he was as yet unsuccessful in the important research
after a perfect snuff-box when I left Italy. What news the
last dispatch may have brought upon this subject I am
ignorant of, but take it for granted you are not; as in all
probability the Phoebe was, by your interest, appointed to
the Mediterranean station for three years, to accomplish
this grand and useful discovery. Should it prove a suc-
cessful one, Capel, on his return, will of course be made
Admiral of the White, for the signal services he has ren-
dered to coxcombality.

"I met with a rival of yours in affectation upon the

79

Continent, William Hill! I fear it will be long ere this
country will again witness his airs, as he is now a prisoner;
this, perhaps, you are glad of, as the society of statues and
pictures has infinitely improved him in this wonted quali-
fication, and therefore rendered him a still more for-
midable competitor.

"HESTER L. STANHOPE."

It is evident that Lady Hester knew Brummell very
well: in this letter she disarms him at the outset, and we
can be sure that in his reply he responded with gusto to
her and his own fearless dexterity in lashing their mutual
friends and acquaintances.

No one ever knew why Lady Hester did expatriate and
retire to the mountains of Lebanon, living in the most
complete seclusion and associating only with Arabs : was
it for love ? And if so, was it for Beau Brummell ? Certain
it is that in her solitude Lady Hester still remembered
Brummell, even as late as the year 1830. An officer of the
Fleet, then serving in the Mediterranean, spent a leave in
wandering through Palestine and the adjacent countries,
and paid a visit to the "old lady of the mountain". Lady
Hester received him graciously, for he was the bearer of
a letter from an old friend. At the hour named for the
"audience", the officer was admitted by a little black
female slave, possibly mute, for the slave ushered him in
perfect silence into an apartment so dark that he could
scarcely see the ottoman on which a voice at the end of
the room desired him to be seated. Then a very small
latticed window near him was suddenly opened, and the
light fell fully upon him leaving, however, the other end
of the apartment in darkness. When his eyes became
somewhat accustomed, he saw a woman sitting in
oriental fashion on a praying-rug, dressed in Eastern

80

style, and by her side the black slave who had escorted
him. Lady Hester inquired after the Duke of Wellington,
and then asked the officer for news of George Brummell
these two being the only persons of her country for
whom she seemed to entertain any interest. The officer
gave in a letter to Captain Jesse an animated description
of his visit to Lady Hester at her wild retreat in the
Lebanon:

"Many years have passed since I was in Syria; but, as
you desire it, I will endeavour to describe my visit to
Lady Hester Stanhope as well as my memory permits. I
was furnished with a letter of introduction from Lord
, which I sent from Sidon; a knowledge of her dis-
inclination to receive Englishmen generally having pre-
vented my delivering it personally when passing near her
abode on my way from Damascus. Her ladyship, how-
ever, acknowledged the letter most politely, invited me
and my companion to visit her for as long a time as we
found it convenient, and sent two fine Arabian horses to
convey us to her residence, which was formerly a convent,
and crowns the summit of a hill about eight miles from
Sidon.

"The ascent to Mar Elias (for so the convent is called)
was steep, and the approach to it more like that of a
crusading baron's castle than of the residence of a solitary
lady, whose education had been finished, and early habits
formed, amongst the most refined and intellectual of the
English nobility. A strong guard of Albanians protected
the gate, and numbers of armed men, of the same nation,
were idling about, as if time was a heavy burthen on their
hands. We were conducted to a kiosk or summer house,
outside the main building, and there an Italian, dressed
like an Arab, received us and provided dinner in the

81

European fashion; this last appeared to be a matter of
some difficulty, as her ladyship conformed to the Eastern
habits, in eating, dress, and other matters, and some time
had elapsed since plates and forks had been called into
requisition. During dinner, an Arab, who spoke French
most volubly, made his appearance and told us he was her
ladyship's astrologer, and enlarged upon her good for-
tune in possessing so talented a wizard as himself.

"Soon after, Lady Hester sent to say she would be
happy to receive us; and we were accordingly ushered
through several apartments, by various attendants, until
we reached a small and rather dark room, in which sat
her ladyship, dressed as an Arab sheik, and looking more
like a young man than an elderly lady. She sat with her
back to the light, which streamed in through a small win-
dow fiill on our faces; this she afterwards told me was
arranged on purpose to give her a fair scrutiny of the faces
of her visitors : chibouques (the long cherry-stick pipe)
were introduced, and in a short time she became most
agreeably communicative.

"Her conversation was more than ordinarily eloquent,
though tinctured with somewhat of the strangeness that
pervaded her whole life and character: her thorough
knowledge of the language, habits, and customs of the
East, combined with the ease with which she expressed
her ideas, enabled her to draw the most vivid pictures of
those countries, and convey her information in a very
agreeable manner. Nor was her conversation by any
means confined to these subjects; for when trifling cir-
cumstances recalled her thoughts to the days of her youth,
when she presided at Mr. Pitt's table, she described those
scenes, and the persons of such as were admitted to the
circle of her uncle's society, as faithfully and minutely as
if the memory of them had not been overlaid by the eight-

8s

and-twenty years she had passed amidst the exciting
events of her later life.

"Beau Brummell, who was in her youthful days the
friend of the Prince of Wales, and envied and admired by
both beaux and belles of all ranks of society, appeared to
have been an especial favourite of hers; and though I am
unable to repeat the description as she gave it, I can, even
now, fancy that I see him riding up to her in the park in
a suit of plum-coloured clothes, to give her a stick of per-
fume of his own manufacture; a peculiar mark of favour,
granted only on condition that she promised faithfully
not to give a morsel to the Prince, who was dying to get
some.

"I hinted at Brummell's eccentricities; but she replied
that he was an exceedingly clever man, always suiting his
conversation to his hearers, and that he almost always
paid her the compliment of talking very sensibly. She
added that she had once rebuked him for some folly or
other, and inquired why so clever a person as he was did
not devote his talents to a higher purpose than he did?
To which Brummell replied, that he knew human nature
well, and that he had adopted the only course which
could place him in a prominent light, and enable him to
separate himself from the society of the ordinary herd of
men, whom he held in considerable contempt. These con-
versations, with the attendant chibouque, which her lady-
ship smoked as determinedly as the longest-bearded
Mussulman in the land, were generally prolonged until
near daylight, when we retired to rest."

The officer gave this description of Lady Hester at the
time of his visit:

"She must have been a tall woman, but her male attire

83

took off from her height; she was slight, well-formed, and
carried herself exceedingly well. The folds of her turban
concealed her grey hairs; and the fairness of her com-
plexion, the absence of beard, the brightness of her eye
and the vivacity of her expression, gave her the appear-
ance of a young man. Her enunciation was rapid and
fluent; and when excited she seemed to light up, and she
used her chibouque much in the same way that a Spanish
lady uses her fan, except that her gestures were more
often those of command than of entreaty. She rode as a
man, and was always well armed."

This was, therefore, the Brummell the ladies loved : one
cannot think of Brummell as a married man, even less as
a paterfamilias. His part upon the stage of fashion would
have been marred, nay ruined, by such an emotion as
love. Like the Gods of Mythology, Brummell descended
from the Olympus to bring anew to men the gift of ele-
gance the bearer of such a gift could only be a god-like
creature enclosed in a brittle shell of supreme egotism that
no human passion could scratch. He often wrote of the
"transitory sentiment" we call love; he often and easily
wrote with a "crow-quilT of "its feigned regrets by tears
made with a sponge and rose-water upon perfumed
paper 53 ; but did he ever sincerely love? We do not know.
There is one strange letter of Miss Georgiana Seymour to
Brummell:

"I am more obliged to you than I can express for your
note; be assured that your approbation of my conduct has
given me very sincere pleasure. This is the only means I
have of telling you so, for I am in such disgrace that I do
not know if I shall be taken to the play; in any case, I
shall be watched : therefore accept my most cordial thanks,

and believe that I shall remember your good nature to
me on this occasion with gratitude to the end of my life.

" does not yet know how unkindly I have been

treated, but is more affectionate than ever, because he
sees I am unhappy. We did not arrive in town till seven
last night. Tomorrow they go to Covent Garden, and
perhaps I may be allowed to be one of the party.

"Please don't neglect my drawing : you would make me
very happy by lending me the yellow book again; the
other I didn't dare ask for, much as I wish for it. Adieu!
I shall be steady in my opinion of you, and always remain
yours very sincerely,

"GEORGIANA A. F. SEYMOUR.* *

What service had Brummell rendered to Miss Geor-
giana Seymour that she should be grateful to him for his
approbation of her conduct? Was it a case of his grace-
fully retiring so as to allow her to obey parental wishes for
another engagement with the person who is left unnamed
in the letter?

Long after he had received this letter Brummell wrote
in a corner of it: "This beautiful creature is dead." And
he himself was, then, in the throes of misery and not far
distant from death.

Brummell generally preferred the society of married
women whose greater knowledge of the world made them
more amusing; and his indifference to bonnes fortunes 'made
him the idol of women, for women are usually enamoured
of men who do not run after them.

Brummell was a marvellous talker; he could draw and
paint in water-colours very creditably, and a certain
poetical vein allowed him to take no mean part in the
fashionable exchanging of vers de soctiti.

85

Brummell kept an album. It was the period when
gentlemen and ladies loved to paste things and pieces of
papers on the large pages of albums or on the folds of a
screen: Byron's screen of what we now call "press cut-
tings 5 3 is a revered museum piece.

The wreck of Caen felt a pang in his heart: why had he
given to that heartless Mademoiselle de St. Ursain his
precious album? It was, that album, his last tangible link
with the past it was his very self, that ponderous quarto-
volume, of plain and stout vellum paper with gilt edges
and bound in dark blue velvet, with clasps and corners of
massive silver and embossed like the corners of an old
missal. In this album Brummell had gathered autographs
and famous signatures; it came to contain two hundred
and twenty-six pieces of poetry given to him by his friends
and some of his own composition; and the choice of the
subjects reveals many facets of Brummeirs nature, for they
are not at all consistent with a worldly and selfish dis-
position, many of them are descriptive of the characteris-
tics of childhood, in which certainly no one would suspect
Brummell of ever having interested himself.

The whole contents seem to have been kept as they
were sent to him, either in notes or on loose scraps of
paper, and either pasted in or copied in at different
periods, for they are arranged so exactly as to avoid turn-
ing over a page in any one of them. This album is a little
monument of industry; the poetry is inserted by Brum-
melPs hand and the writing is remarkably neat, almost
ladylike in its delicacy of penmanship and regularity; as
legible as print. What it contains was written in his happy
days; and to turn over the pages of this album is to see at
a glance to what an extent Brummell's life was linked
with that of his best known contemporaries: Byron,
Sheridan, the Duchess of Devonshire, the Lords Erskinc

86

and John Townshend, Lord Melbourne, Lady Dacre,
Lady Granville, the Duchess of York.

Two pieces of verse from his hand occupy one page of
the album : the first seems to have been composed for a
girl who had taken an oath upon a lock of hair, and the
second seems to apply to the same person, as it deals with
a similar oath, and the author complains of cruel treach-
ery. And there are some stanzas that Brammell, in later
years, asserted were his likewise.

Unhappy child of indiscretion,

Poor slumber er on a breast forlorn!

Pledge and reproof of past transgression,
Dear, though unwelcome to be born.

For thee, a suppliant wish addressing
To Heaven, thy mother fain would dare;

But conscious blushes stain the blessing,
And sighs suppress my broken prayer:

Yet, spite of these, my mind unshaken,

In parent duty turns to thee;
Though long repented, ne'er forsaken,

Thy days shall loved and guarded be!

And though to rank and place a stranger,
Thy life an humble course must run:

Still shalt thou learn to fly the danger
Which I, too late, have learnt to shun.

And, lest the injurious world upbraid thee,

For mine, or for thy father's ill;
A nameless mother still shall aid thee

A hand unseen protect thee still.

Meanwhile, in these sequestered valleys
Still shall tkou rest in calm content;

For innocence may smile at malice^
And thou oh! thou art innocent!

Brammell, in his later years, told the lady to whom he
sent a copy of those verses that "he wrote them in 1806
for Julia Storer, who died, most unhappy, some years
after".

XII

All biographers have been insistent that George Brum-
jLjLmell was not a Dandy and if we confine our judg-
ment to outward appearances, it is true that Brummell
discarded in his dress all the eccentricities and exaggera-
tions that had been typical of the Dandies. But the very
essence of George Brummell, his philosophy of life, his
whole attitude to life and society was that of a born-
Prince of Dandyism.

What is Dandyism? It is most difficult to define. For
Dandyism is something both ephemeral and eternal; and
even in the shabby epoch in which we live, without a
single shred left of an inclination, not to say a concern,
for elegance in the true sense, Dandyism survives; it sur-
vives, happily, in the approach to life, in the manner of
living of a few men who will hand the torch to other men,
from epoch to epoch for the spirit of Petronius Arbiter
is as immortal and unextinguishable as the spirit of Plato
and Leonardo.

What then, is Dandyism? It is something both human
and intellectual. It is compounded of vanity, a base senti-
ment indeed, and of ambition, which is the strongest
impulse to greatness. But ambition can be fulfilled only
by action, and action is seldom elegant. And pride can
go hand-in-hand with selfishness and unkindness. Vanity
is neither selfish nor unkind; indeed, she thrives on good
manners and kindness. The vain is seldom fatuous. A vain
man is a flower that expects to be watered by the dew of
admiration. Such is the Dandy.

89

It is not enough to be dressed to perfection to be a
Dandy. One may be a Dandy in a creased suit. Indeed,
incredible as it may seem, the Dandies once had a fancy
for torn clothes: to invent new originality some Dandies
had the impertinence, and certainly the bad taste, to walk
about in clothes that were torn before wearing them; the
absurd operation being performed with a piece of pointed

glass.

Probably the origin of Dandyism was French. But the
word Dandyism has no equivalent in any other language;
and we must take it, therefore, that Dandyism is a truly
English interpretation of a philosophy of life. Only Eng-
land has provided a genuine Dandy George Brummell;
all other countries have only had a crop of imitators, often
second-rate.

Elegance had returned to England at the Restoration
of Charles II, leaning on the arms of corruption. Elegance
came to attack the seriousness of CromwelPs Protestants,
whose high-mindedness was rooted in bad manners. The
greatest merit of Charles IFs Court will most certainly
remain that of having helped England to escape from the
tyranny of bad manners if not of so-called morality.

Every great event in history occurs in its proper time,
and the England of Charles II was most anxious to be
corrupted. Men like Rochester and Shaftesbury strode a
century ahead of French manners and reached the
Regency at one bound. And there were Buckingham and
Hamilton and Charles himself. These men began the
reign of the Beaux. The Beaux are not to be confused with
the Dandies, whom they precede. Dandyism was already
existing below the surface, for Dandyism is as old as
civilization; but it was to spring from the heart of society.
"Handsome Fielding" as Charles II called him died
in 1712, succeeded by Colonel Edgeworth; the chain of

9

Beaux closed with Nash, and opened the door to Brum-
mell escorted by Dandyism. The interval between Field-
ing and Nash marked the period of its development and
concretion.

The name Dandyism was given later. We do not find
it in Johnson's Dictionary; yet Dandyism existed at that
time. Marlborough, Chesterfield, Bolingbroke, all were
tinged with incipient Dandyism. It was indeed Ches-
terfield who made of his letters the Treatise of the Gentle-
man, not so much by prescribing the Laws as by detailing
the customs of the estate. Chesterfield is still tightly bound
to accepted opinion; Marlborough, with his beauty like a
haughty lady's, has about him more of avarice than of
amity. Bolingbroke alone is advanced, a real Dandy of
the later days. He has all the boldness of action, the sump-
tuous impertinence, the pre-occupation of the effect, and
his vanity is ever on the alert. Breaking through the
prudery of London drawing-rooms, did he not advertise
his very natural love for an orange-girl, perhaps not even
pretty, who stood under the galleries of Parliament? And
it was Bolingbroke who invented the motto of Dandyism,
Nil mirari, do not wonder at anything, be as the gods who
surprise us by remaining impassive.

A Dandy was to be calm, impassive. Were a Dandy to
speak like Pericles, he would keep his arms folded under
his cloak. Rulhiere, who treated history as an anecdote,
tells us of the Russian Princess d 3 Aschekoff who scandal-
ized the Court by not wearing rouge, when red in Russia
meant beautiful, so much so that the very beggars did not
dare to practise their calling without being rouged. The
non-rouge of Princess d'Aschekoff was pure Dandyism. A
true Dandy was the Austrian Prince de Kaunitz, not for
his calm and his nonchalance and indifference and fero-
cious egoism, but because in order to get his hair powdered

exactly to the right shade, he passed through a suite of
drawing-rooms whose size and numbers he had calcu-
lated, and was powdered as he passed by footmen armed
with puffs.

Dandyism is a complete theory of life. It is a philosophy
of life, made up entirely of shades, of things that are
utterly unessential, such as the things and ways that com-
pose a very civilized society.

The Dandies made rules that dominated the most aris-
tocratic and the most conservative, and imposed these
rules with the help of wit, which is an acid, and of grace,
which is a solvent. In vain do Democracies admit only
regimented opinions ; one day Caprice will arise and make
its way again through the impenetrable glades. For these
rules are eternal, and they escape the warfare of vulgar
men. The rules of Dandyism are the science of manners
and attitudes, a science which thrives in the garden of
frivolity and imagination: and frivolities are the only
things that really matter in life. George Brummell was the
final expression of this, and he will never be equalled.

At the zenith of his success, Brummell was the hero of
elegant idleness, He had no keen interest in the world
outside himself, and quite rightly he found a greater
interest in beautiful snuff-boxes than in social questions.
In this he was the true Dandy, for Dandyism is the art of
selection, practised by a lover of the visible world. Only
when one rises above the dreariness of the Rights of Man
can one be a true Dandy: and this rise implies a strength
of character not inferior to the duel between the Arch-
angel and Lucifer.

BrummelPs philosophy of life was, like his elegance,
heaven-born he could be charmingly familiar without
profaning the proportions; he was safe where abler men
would have been lost. And BrummelTs whole life was an

92

influence, which is something ordinary men find difficult
to understand : for an influence is something we feel all
the time it lasts, and when it ceases to be we note its value
by the difference. An influence is like time remembered.
English society of BrummelTs time, shaped by Brummell,
so detailed and clever, is not to be rediscovered.

The empire ruled by Brummell was a realm of personal
autocracy. And the marvel is that the facts of BrummelTs
life, which have entirely perished, have nothing in them-
selves to justify such admiration, because they would be
called ephemeral: but are manners ephemeral? Are they
not the only thing that we really remember of past history,
far more and far nearer our hearts and minds than the so-
called great deeds?

It was by his manners that Brummell became a prince
of his times, and his name remains, like the names of the
famous orators, the actors, the artists, the names of all the
men who spoke to us through our mind and senses. We
cannot explain the place Brummell fills in history; but the
mere mention of his name brings to our minds the lustre
of his person and of his manners. He was an exception,
and it is difficult to describe exactly that influence which
answers to an exception, and turns exception into a law
and a conception of life.

During his lifetime a strange portrait of him was drawn:
Granby, by Trebeck. A few light strokes drawn by a quill
on bluish paper with silver margin. A mere frivolity
dipped in Chinese ink. The curious touches of Trebeck
must have been drawn from life; they are beyond inven-
tion. Or perhaps we may recognize Brummell in Bulwer's
novel Pelham. Yet, Brummell still lacks an historical ex-
planation. Fame reflected him in the sparkling purity of
her brittle surface, and at the back of the changeable
mirror of Fashion we can still see the image of Brummell.

93

There was in Brummell a harmony between nature and
destiny, between genius and fortune. His mind was not
great; he was not destined to leave behind, like Byron,
immortal works. His destiny was to be a Dandy, the per-
fect Dandy, and he fulfilled his destiny admirably he
was Dandyism personified.

94

PART TWO

Arbiter Elegantiarum

The years went by. In the "reign" of George Brum-
mell over London society there were no events to
record. It was, day in, day out, the life of a gentleman.
Gentlemen, in those days, did not work; it was, in fact,
ungentlemanly to work. One could write a book or com-
pose poems, as several did; or one could devote oneself to
politics. But no gentleman did any work for his living, at
least in the sense we do it nowadays. This is perhaps the
great difference between the past and the present; yet,
the past did stretch well into the nineteenth century and
it is within the memory of the living that men who did
work and even those who attained notable success with
their work had to strive very hard to be admitted into
society; we all remember how many London clubs, in the
igso's, still barred from membership gentlemen who were
"in trade 5 ' or did any business. The life of a gentleman in
BrummelPs time was not much different from a gentle-
man's life in London in that modern world that came to
an end in 1939. One attended to one's toilette and appear-
ance with due care; one rode in the park or played golf;
lunched at the fashionable places; gambled or betted; did
some visiting and spent the evening at a show and after-
wards went to parties in fashionable houses. Substitute the
club's dining-room for the restaurant, the assembly rooms
for the night-clubs, and we have the same kind of life.

Brummell read a great deal, his letters are full of allu-
sions to the current books. He collected Sevres porcelain
and pieces of Buhl furniture, and he put together also a
fair collection of prints and drawings. In a letter dated

97

i8oo he wrote to a friend: "I am quite unhappy that I
have no more drawings to send you, and I have equally
to regret my inability to plead any better excuse for the
poverty of my portefeuille than my natural idleness and the
deprecation of my friends."

Now and then he wrote a piece of poetry. After the
death of the Duchess Georgiana of Devonshire there ap-
peared in the Gentleman's Magazine a fantasy in verse for
children. The Butterfly's Ball, by William Roscoe the his-
torian, famous for his accounts of Lorenzo II Magnifico
and Leo X. The verses charmed many people, and by
order of the King and Queen were set to music for the
Princess Mary. Brummel had an inspiration, and wrote
the counterpart. The Butterfly* s Funeral, meant for children
too, but it is possible to surmise that in the poem he grieved
over the loss of his friend the Duchess of Devonshire : she
was the Butterfly and he might be discerned in the Grass-
hopper; the scenes bore the reminiscence and the colour
of the gatherings at Chatsworth and Devonshire House.

Oh ye! who so lately were blythesome and gay,
At the Butterfly's banquet carousing away;

Tour feasts and your revels of pleasure are fled,
For the soul of the banquet, the Butterfly's dead!

JVb longer the Flies and the Emmets advance,

To join with their friend in the Grasshopper's dance;

For see his thin form o'er the favourite bend,

And the Grasshopper mourns for the loss of his friend.

And hark! to the funeral dirge of the Bee,
And the Beetle, who follows as solemn as he;

And see where so mournful the green rushes wave,
The Mole is preparing the Butterfly' } s grave.

98

The Dormouse attended, but cold andforlorn^
And the Gnat slowly winded his shrill little horn;

And the Moth, who was grieved for the loss of a sister 9
Bent over the body and silently kiss'd her.

The corse was embalmed at the set of the sun.
And enclosed in a case which the Silk-worm had spun;

By the help of the Hornet the coffin was laid
On a bier out of myrtle and jessamine made.

In weepers and scarves cairn the Butterflies all,
And six of their number supported the pall;

And the Spider came there, in his mourning so black,
But the fire of the Glowworm soon frightened him back.

The Grub left his nutshell, to join in the throng,
And slowly led with him the Bookworm along;

Who wept his poor neighbour's unfortunate doom,
And wrote these few lines, to be placed on her tomb :

EPITAPH

At this solemn spot, where the green rushes wave,
Here sadly we bent o'er the Butterfly's grave;

3 Twos here we to beauty our obsequies paid,

And hallowed the mound which her ashes had made.

And here shall the daisy and violet blow,
And the lily discover her bosom of snow;

While under the leaf, in the evenings of spring,
Still mourning his friend, shall the Grasshopper sing.

It was not great poetry, but it was a success: the little
poem was published anonymously by John Wallis in
1807, and it sold three thousand copies, not all to children.

99

He was fond of drawing and painting in water-colours
and made sketches and portraits in pencil, ink and colours :
there was quite a good sketch of the Duchess of Devon-
shire copied in miniature from Reynold's portrait of her.
He did not disdain showing his own drawings and sketches
to his friends, and once while visiting Ticknell Hall, Lord
Granville's home, Brummell was actually mistaken by an
old gentleman for an artist! It happened that while the
drawings were being handed about by the company in
the drawing-room, dinner was announced, and Brummell
rose to offer his arm to a lady: an old gentleman who did
not know Brummell very well, rose at the same time with
the same intention, and the Beau, out of respect for the old
man's grey hair promptly withdrew with a bow. The old
gentleman, mistaking him for an artist, loudly remarked
that he was glad to see "that the young man knew his
place!"

One of BrummelPs great hobbies, and one which, on
his example, became quite a fashion, was to collect snuff-
boxes, of which he put together a notable collection. At
the time " taking snuff" was quite the thing, and a man of
fashion had snuff-boxes for all occasions and dress. The
smartest men had a box for every day of the year; others
were content with different boxes suitable for the various
seasons, or for different hours of the day, or for visiting or
travelling. There were devised canes incorporating a
snuff-box in the handle. The libertine had boxes shaped
like ladies' legs, or decorated in the inside of the lid with
saucy vignettes; the vain ones carried boxes with a small
mirror inside the lid.

As in everything else, Brummell set the tone in the way
of taking snuff. The box was carried constantly in the
hand, not only to have it always ready, but also because

100

the weight of a box heavily jewelled and enamelled might
spoil the line of a waistcoat. In a salon, BrummelFs style
was this: poised evenly on the two feet, he opened the
lid of the box with a flick of the left thumb, with a move-
ment of the whole hand that set in relief his white well-
shaped hand and the ring on the middle finger, and the
correct amount of shirt-cuffi showing out of his coat
sleeves and the embroidered handkerchief of fine cambric.
The lady or the gentleman to whom the box was then
proffered, would then deign to hold a pose with out-
stretched two fingers and take a pinch. If it was a lady,
the act of putting the two fingers into the snuff gave her
an opportunity for displaying her rings and bracelets and
her snowy and well-modelled arm or the frail romantic
wrist. The pinch would then be an excuse for a brief
pause in the conversation: a moment of suspense, nay, of
aspiration. . . . Afterwards the conversation would, in-
evitably, turn upon the most exquisite aroma and the
beauty or novelty of the box. After which the lid would be
closed with another little flick of the middle finger of the
left hand, with military precision. And the conversation,
underlined with delicate, or generous, sneezes and blow-
ing of noses, would skip along upon a rivulet of gossips
and topics that did not fatigue the mind.

In the matter of snuff BrummelPs opinion was unques-
tioned. Fribourg and Treyer, whose shop in the Hay-
market was patronized by the connoisseurs, were one year
anxiously expecting their supply of the veritable Mar-
tinique, and the list of applicants for this highly-prized
snuff had long been filled. The day came when the hogs-
head was ceremoniously opened in the presence of the
Arbiter, who, after taking a few pinches, gravely pro-
nounced it a detestable compound, and not the style that
any man with the slightest pretension to correct taste could

101

possibly patronize. This astounding announcement petri-
fied the shopkeepers, especially as BrummelTs companions
left him in the shop to discuss the matter. But no sooner
were they gone than Brummel said: "By some oversight
I did not put my name down on your Martinique list.
Since the hogshead has been condemned, you will not
object to my having three jars of it; no one knows its
value as I do, and there is little doubt that when I shall
open my box, the remainder will find a speedy demand. 3 '
Messrs. Fribourg were only too glad to yield to the ruse
of the exquisite arbiter of fashion. When it became known
that he had absolutely bought and positively paid for
three jars of it, not a grain of the Martinique was left.

"A life of leisure", Brummell said in those days, "is a
most difficult art. One has to cheat continuously the ennui ;
and boredom is as depressing as an insistent creditor.' 5

With the passing of time, Brummell, who had enjoyed
inventing the cravat and the trousers with the buttoned
bottom and the evening black coat, abandoned the pre-
occupation of his youth: he continued to dress irreproach-
ably, but his clothes were darker in colour, more simply
cut and worn without concern. In this sense he was the
perfect Dandy, who may spend ten hours a day dressing,
but once dressed thinks no more about it it is for others
to notice that he is well dressed. Thus Brummell arrived
at the summit of art, where it meets nature. He was still
consulted by his friends about a new style. One day the
Duke of Beaufort met him in St. James's, on the way to
the club, and asked him what he thought of his new coat.
Brummell made him turn this way and the other, and
then he spoke : "Do you call this a coat ?" The Duke went
straight back home to change his clothes.

The relations with the Prince of Wales remained quite

1 02

intimate. In fact, they had changed, no longer were they
the royal patron and the protege, now they were equals
joint sovereigns of the world that composed their
separate Courts. But in matter of dress, Brummell re-
mained the undisputed arbiter. In BrummelPs fastidious
taste the Prince discerned a more rigid selectivity, that
quest for a perfect harmony which he was not fitted by
temperament to share, for the Prince leaned too often to
the decorative and the lavish and on one occasion, at a
parade of troops, he went so far as to add rows of diamonds
to his Hussar uniform.

BnimmelPs point of vantage was the bow-window at
White's Club. From that graceful window, that still
adorns the club's lovely frontage, Brummell, like a god-
of-taste in his fitting shrine, let his words of judgment fall,
and the witticisms which were dropped from that window
were not always kind. A few years hence Brummell would
say to a nouveau riche who pressed for the reimbursement of
a small loan: "Good Lord! And one day I bowed to you
from The Window, and I said 'Hello, Jimmy'!"

Brummell's fascination, however, remained intellec-
tual. His person was distinguished, his features handsome
despite the fact that a fall from his horse had marred the
Grecian regularity of his profile. But his air was finer than
his face, and his bearing surpassed the perfection of his
frame. Sometimes there came into his clever, mocking
eyes, a look of glacial indifference without contempt, as
becomes a man who bears within him something superior
to the visible world. His voice remained splendid, his ac-
cents and diction were perfect. Those who were not of
sufficient importance to his vanity, he would gaze at with
calm but wondering eyes. And he pleased with his person
as others please with their works.

He maintained an immense influence over other men.

103

He drew out of its torpidity a society that was essentially
blase; and to effect this he did not sacrifice an inch of his
dignity. He was not an amiable man, for there was too
much correctness in him to be perfectly amiable. But it
was as though his very caprices were respected.

His greatest asset was the genius of irony, which gave
him that sphinx-like air which interests us as a mystery
and a danger. His genius for irony made him one of the
greatest mystificators that England ever possessed. Dan-
dyism is the product of a bored society, and boredom is
not conducive to kindness. Brummell preferred astonish-
ing to pleasing, a preference that often succeeds. Less than
a century later, Oscar Wilde modelled his life on this
preference.

BrummelTs indolence forbade his being lively, for to be
lively is to be excited, to be excited is to care about some-
thing and to care about something is to show oneself in-
ferior: Brummell was always cool and always said the
right thing. His witticisms crucified. He did not bubble
and sparkle as Oscar Wilde's wit did; he did not try his
epigrams upon his friends as Oscar Wilde did before put-
ting them on the lips of characters in his plays ; Brummell
simply let his witticisms fall from his lips ; his impertinence
was too great to be condensed into epigrams. It passed
from expression into action, attitudes, gestures and in-
flection of the voice. His wit was of that superior quality
which alone is possible in good society, for wit borders on
vulgarity as the sublime verges on the ridiculous and one
false step is fatal. Impertinence is a veiled genius and does
not need the help of words to score; it is a shield against
the vanity of others, so often hostile.

So intellectual a power was Brummell, that he ruled
even more by what he looked than by what he said. His
effect upon others was more direct than the action of

104

speech. He influenced by an intonation, a look, a gesture,
by obvious intention," by silence itself. As a great master
of conversation, he was often silent; but BrummelPs
silence was another way of producing effect, it was the
tantalizing coquetry of one who is sure of pleasing and
knows at which end desire takes fire, and this explains why
he has left so few witticisms,

Society rewarded him with all the happiness in its
power. There was no fashionable assembly or party where
his presence was not regarded as a triumph; his absence
was a catastrophe. In the papers his name was printed
before those of the most illustrious guests. At Almack's
balls and Ascot meetings, everyone bowed beneath his
sway. But he had a kindness of his own, a kindness which
he made the rule of his life and set as a model to all elegant
men. "Civility, my good fellow," he said to a young
gentleman who had laid himself open to censure by the
thoughtless omission of an act of courtesy to the lady near
whom the young man was standing. c 'Civility may truly
be said to cost nothing; if it does not meet with a due
return, it at least leaves you in the most creditable posi-
tion. When I was young, I was acquainted with a striking
example of what may sometimes be gained by it, though
my friend on this occasion did not, I assure you, expect
to benefit by his politeness. In leaving the Opera one
evening, a short time previous to the fall of the curtain,
he overtook in the lobby an elderly lady, making her way
out to avoid the crowd; she was dressed in a most peculiar
manner, with hoop and brocade, and a pyramid of hair;
in fact, she was at least a century behind the rest of the
world in her costume; so singular an apparition had
attracted the attention of half a dozen 'Lord Dukes' and
"Sir Harrys 3 , sitting in the lobby, and as she slowly moved
towards the box entrance they amused themselves by

105

making impertinent remarks on her extraordinary dress,
and infirm gait.

"Directly my friend caught sight of them, and saw what
they were after, he went to her assistance, threatened to
give them in charge to a Bow Street officer, and with his
best bow offered her his arm. She accepted it, and on the
stairs he inquired whether she had a chair or a carriage,
at the same time intimating his willingness to go for one.
'Thank you, sir, I have my chair, 3 replied the old lady,
c if you will only be good enough to remain with me until
it arrives/ As she was speaking, her servants came up
with it, and, making the cavalier a very stately curtsy,
she requested to know to whom she had the honour of
being indebted for so much attention. 'My name, madam/
replied the stranger, as he handed her to her chair, c is
Boothby, but I am usually called Prince Boothby/ upon
which the antiquated lady thanked him once more, and
left. Well, from that hour Boothby never saw her again,
and did not hear of her till her death, which took place
a few years after, when he received a letter from her
lawyer, announcing to him the agreeable intelligence of
her having left him heir to several thousands a year ! Now,
my good sir," said Brummell to the abashed but youthful
delinquent, "for the future, pray remember Prince
Boothby/'

106

II

It was now 1807: the war with "Bony" was flagging.
Napoleon was Emperor of France. The blockade of
Europe was at its peak. Trade in Britain was prospering
on the contraband to Napoleon's Europe. The fight of
England against Napoleon that had started on the ist
February 1 793 and was to last, with a brief interval of
fifteen months, for twenty-two years was but the fight of
the sea against all the combined forces of the Continent
of Europe. And England, which at that time had, includ-
ing Scotland, less than ten million inhabitants, and never
put together more than four hundred thousand men the
maximum ever reached was, in 1802, 404,068 had,
however, assembled a fleet whose men numbered, in 1813,
nearly one hundred and fifty thousand men. But the
blockade had worked in favour of England England
found herself the general shipper for all Europe's needs.
In 1806, from Berlin, Napoleon had decreed the blockade
of England ; but, in reality, the trade of England had risen
in one year and had more than doubled, and no part of
the Continent could obtain sugar and coffee and spices
except through England; in the Mediterranean the
Turkish flag on Greek ships was hiding English goods to
Trieste, Venice and Genoa; on the Adriatic coast, a firm
used five hundred horses to bring English goods into
France itself; and English goods entered Europe every-
where in boats and barges, under women's skirts, even
inside the coffins of mock funerals! England was growing
rich and London life was even more hectic than ever.

107

One night in 1807, after dinner at Carlton House, the
Prince inquired of some members of White's and Brooks's,
who were present, what sort of fare they got at their clubs.
Sir Thomas Stapley answered: "The eternal joint and
beef-steaks, the boiled fowl with oyster sauce, and an
apple tart. That is what we have, sir, and very mono-
tonous fare it is." His Royal Highness nodded under-
standingly, rang for his chef, Watier, and asked him if
he would care to take a house and organize a club, where
special attention should be given to the cuisine. Watier
liked the idea and named Madison, the Prince's page, as
manager, and Labourier, from Carlton House, as chief
cook. "You, Brummell," said the Prince, "can make this
your own club." It was, there and then, decided to call the
new club "Waller's". A house was soon found at No. 81
Piccadilly, at the east corner of Bolton Street. The house
had been for some time the headquarters of a group of
gentlemen, headed by Lord Headford and John Mad-
docks, who used it for their hobby of singing glees, catches
and madrigals they called them "harmonic meetings".

George Brummell was elected permanent President.
There is in existence a letter from Byron to Lady Blessing-
ton which tells us about Watier's: "In my time Watier's
was the Dandy Club, of which, though no dandy, I was
a member; at that time, too, of its greatest glory, when
Brummell, Mildmay, Alvanley and Pierrepoint gave the
Dandy Balls ; and we, that is, the Club, got up the famous
masquerade at Burlington House and Garden for Welling-
ton." Byron not only liked the club, but liked the Dan-
dies: "They were always very civil to me, though in
general they disliked literary people, and mystified
Madame de Stael and the like, damnably. The truth is
that, though I gave up the business early, I had a tinge
of dandyism in my minority, and probably retained

1 08

enough of it to conciliate the great one, at four-and-
twenty. I knew them all more or less, and they made me
a member of Watier's, a superb club at that time, being,
I take it, the only literary man, except two others, both
men of the world, Moore and Sheridan in it."

At Watier's Brummell was the supreme dictator. He
gave much of his time to the club, supervising the per-
fection of the appointments, on the lookout for the slightest
flaw, always urbane, witty and polished, courted by all
and feared by many, laying down the law on dress, on
manners and on those magnificent and costly snuff-boxes
that were all the rage. The Prince of Wales did not use
the club; but his brother, the Duke of York, joined it.
Watier's became a kind of Court for Brummell, and he
fomented the excesses, ridiculed the scruples, patronized
the novices and exercised paramount dominion over all.

The dinners at Watier's were most exclusive; the most
exquisite dinners were supplied, and it was a rule not to
charge the card-players for their dinner, so that Watier's
soon became a place of constant play, Macao being the
favourite game, and gambling became so heavy that few
could stay the pace. One night Tom Sheridan came into
the club and, although not an habitual gambler, laid 10
at Macao. Brummell happened to drop in from the Opera
at the moment, and proposed that he should take Sheri-
dan's place, promising to go half with him in any win-
nings he might collect. Brummell's luck at the moment
was phenomenal; the Beau added 200 to his friend's
modest stake, and in ten minutes had won 1,500. Here
he stopped and handing 750 to Sheridan remarked:
"There, Tom, go home and give your wife and brats a
supper, and never play again."

ld ^ on ^j^^

Street, and moved a few blocks away^Between Grosvenor

109

Square and Park Lane, into more spacious rooms, at 24
South Street. In South Street was the house in which
Charles James Fox had spent his last years, although he
had died in the Duke of Devonshire's house in Chiswick.
Bmmmell was wrong in leaving the rooms in Chester-
field Street: within those old rooms there were all the
memories of the years when he had made his conquest of
London Society. And soon after he had left Chesterfield
Street, Lady Hester Stanhope left England for ever. Her
departure had nothing to do with him; for Lady Hester
had been in love with General Sir John Moore, who fell
in Spain at the battle of Corunna, with her name on his
lips; and Lady Hester went away from England in deep
mourning. But with the departure of the lovely and im-
pudent Lady Hester Stanhope there ceased for Brum-
mell the merry passages of wit, for Lady Hester was a
charming influence in BrummelTs life, the other good
influence being Georgiana Devonshire, and she had
already gone.

Ill

In the autumn of the same year that Brummell lost the
steadying friendship of Lady Hester Stanhope, the
youngest daughter of King George III, the Princess
Amelia, died of consumption; sending her father a ring
which contained a lock of her hair and which was en-
graved with the message: "Remember me when I am
gone." The last message of his beloved caused a recur-
rence of madness in the old king, and within three months
a Regency Bill was passed by Parliament, and in February
the Prince of Wales became Regent. The fact was to be
of much importance in the life of George Brummell.

The madness of King George III was of a strange
nature. In the months preceding the Regency he was
visited at Windsor Castle by the Reverend John Evans of
Islington, who described the King as neatly dressed, in
blue coat with gilt buttons and blue star, white waistcoat,
white stockings and gold buckles on his shoes. His hat
resembled that worn by the clergy, with the addition of a
gold button and loop, mounted by a black cockade. He
looked ruddy and full; his voice was sonorous and he
conversed with cheerfulness. During the visit he inquired
about the balloon in which Sadler the aeronaut had made
his ascent; touched his hat and said: "Gentlemen, good
night," to the band of musicians on the steps of the ter-
race, and chatted affably with the ladies and gentlemen
who withdrew on either side at his passage, kept in check
by a police officer with a little switch, and ended the day
playing on the harpsichord, an instrument that had

in

formerly belonged to the great Handel and was supposed
to have been manufactured at Antwerp in the year 1612.

Anyway, on the i ith January 181 1 and the year had
come in bitterly cold, with sad tales in consequence a
delegation of the Commons went, in great state, to the
Prince of Wales and a delegation of the Lords went to the
Queen, to inform them that the Prince was appointed
Regent. The Prince replied very solemnly, calling on the
"Divine Will to extricate us, and the nation, from the
grievous embarrassments of our present condition."

The fat and gay Prince of Wales felt that he must
emulate the knights of old, who spent the eve of their
knighthood in vigil and prayers and guarding their
armour; and so, before he became Prince Regent, he
partook of the Holy Eucharist, albeit the sole object of
his piety was to obtain a certificate that he was in the com-
munion of the Church of England. Nevertheless this pub-
lic act of worship was a stately affair; the Prince was in
the Royal Closet during the major portion of the service,
and afterwards, attended by three lords, he went up to
the altar, took his seat under a canopy, made his offering
in a gold dish, and then, with the three attendant lords,
took Holy Communion.

On the 6th of February the Prince was sworn-in as
Regent. The ceremony was a great one. About twelve
o'clock a party of the flank companies of Grenadiers, with
their colours, the bands and drums and fifes, with white
garters, marched into the courtyard of Carlton House,
pitched their colours in the centre of the grand entrance;
the band struck up "God Save the King", and continued
playing the anthem alternately with martial airs until five
o'clock. Six Yeomen of the Guard and an usher, together
with the Prince's servants in state, lined the grand hall
and staircase, and several of the rooms; at three o'clock

112

the Duke of Montrose, followed by all the royal dukes and
an assembly of Privy Councillors, arrived, and the mag-
nificent suite of state apartments were opened and the
illustrious persons were ushered into the Gold Room : the
Prince approached in grand procession preceded by the
officers of his household.

They passed through the Circular Drawing-room (cir-
cular rooms were then the height of elegance), and from
this into the grand salon, which was draped in scarlet,
embellished with portraits of the admirals who had fought
the battles that had given England the dominion of the
seas; and here the Prince seated himself at the top of the
table, with his royal brothers and cousins on each side,
whilst the officers of the household ranged themselves on
each side of the entrance to the room. Then, the Privy
Councillors, in full dress, and according to their rank,
headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord
Chancellor, the Archbishop of York and the Lord Presi-
dent, made their reverence to the Prince, who made a
graceful return to each, and they took their place at the
table: and at last the Prince delivered his speech inter-
spersed with "So help me, God", and subscribed the two
oaths.

Afterwards he handed to the President of the Council
a certificate of his having received the Sacrament of the
Lord's Supper at the Chapel Royal of St. James, and the
Lord President approached the Regent, bent the knee,
and kissed his hand. The royal dukes followed and so did
the archbishops and all the rest. During the whole of the
ceremony His Royal Highness maintained, it was re-
marked, the most graceful and dignified deportment.

The next event was a grand fete given by the Prince to
two thousand of the Nobility and Gentry and Foreign
Ambassadors at Carlton House. For fully six weeks tailors,

milliners and mantua-makers worked for it, while archi-
tects., painters, carpenters, upholsterers, cooks and con-
fectioners contrived to make the Regent's fete splendid:
diamonds were borrowed by ladies and gentlemen for the
night at 1 1 per cent.

The fete took place on the igth of June. The whole of
Garlton House, even the basements, which were utilized
as supper rooms, were thrown open to the guests, and a
large portion of the garden was used for supper. The
Throne-room was splendidly hung with crimson velvet,
embroidered in pure gold, with massive fringes. The
canopy, carved and gilt, was surmounted by four helmets
of real gold, with white plumes of the finest ostrich feathers,
seventeen inches high. On each side of the canopy were
magnificent antique draperies, forming a background to
two superb candelabra, and under the canopy stood a
grand State-chair and foot-stool. The compartments of
the room were decorated with the richest gold ornaments
on a crimson velvet; there were two superb mirrors about
twelve feet high, resting upon oriental alabaster tables on
gilt frames. On a chimney, decorated with ormolu foliage,
was placed a mirror in a superb frame; and on the chim-
ney-piece and tables were fine French girandoles of
ormolu. In this room there were no other seats than stools,
gilt and covered with crimson velvet, as was proper in the
presence of the Regent representing the Throne. Through
a door at one end of this room a temporary staircase had
been erected as a private passage for the Prince and his
particular friends to pass down to the head of the tables
when supper was announced. A door leading to the
Throne-room had been removed, and a large mirror
being placed in the opposite door, beyond the throne,
the whole range of candelabra and the throne itself were
reflected in it with a striking effect.

114

The ballroom was decorated with Arabesque orna-
ments and figures, forerunners of the Brighton Pavilion
that the Regent was planning to rebuild in grander style*
The windows and recesses in that room had circular tops,
and these were decorated with blue velvet draperies,
again adorned with massive gold fringes, lace tassels and
ropes; and in the recesses were tall French mirrors in
gold frames with sofas under them. Before each pilaster
was a richly gilt pedestal, on which stood a superb French
girandole in ormolu carrying eight wax lights; and the
statuary on the two chimney-pieces was profusely orna-
mented with ormolu, and over them were mirrors in gold
frames and candelabra of ormolu. The whole decoration
of Carlton House for the fete was indeed the apotheosis of
velvet draperies and gilt.

The Regent entered the apartments at a quarter past
nine, dressed in a scarlet coat most richly ornamented,
in a very novel style, with gold lace and a brilliant Star
of the Garter, and he arrived oh, strange coincidence!
-just at the same time as the dethroned Louis XVIII,
who was in England as the Comte de Lille. Dancing began
about twelve, and at half-past two supper was announced.
At no Court in Europe had ever been served a sit-down
supper for two thousand people. The largest entertain-
ment, at the most brilliant period of the French Court,
had been the fete given by the Prince of Conde at Chan-
tilly, in honour of the King of Sweden, when four hundred
covers were laid. One thousand six hundred of the
Regent's two thousand guests sat under canvas in the
gardens, and four hundred sat in the house. In the gar-
dens there were three walks, which crossed the broad and
lofty wall adjoining St. James's Park. These walks were
closed in by walls and covered by awnings, under which
ran long supper tables, and at the end of each walk was

erected a circular marquee for the service. The sides of
the walls were covered with festoons of flowers, relieved
by verdant plants and shrubs. From the arched roofs were
suspended thousands of lights : the sight from the central
entrance to the gardens was delightful an Arabian
night's dream. Some lampoonist called it a Neronian
banquet.

The Conservatory, which was in Gothic style, had a
circular buffet surmounted by a medallion with the initial
G.P.R. lined by festoons and draperies of pink and silver,
and partly filled by mirrors before which, upon orna-
mented shelves, stood the most exquisite gold plate. At
the head table in this splendid supper-room sat the
Regent, and in front of his seat was a circular basin of
water, with a Temple in the centre of it, from which a
meandering stream ran to the bottom of the table, bor-
dered with green banks* Three or four fantastic bridges
were thrown over it, one of them with a small tower,
which gave the little stream a picturesque appearance. In
the stream there were also gold and silver fishes. It was
beautiful and charming; and the gold and silver pieces
were used with a grandeur and good taste that was
beautiful and superb.

And the ladies 3 dresses and gentlemen's arrays put the
Vielle Cour de Versailles into shade. The servants themselves
wore a rich costume of dark blue trimmed with very
broad gold lace. The assistants wore black suits and white
vests. Two bands of the Guards played throughout the
night.

The ladies had been requested to dress in the products
of British industry: the Marchioness of Devonshire ex-
ceeded all others in splendour, wearing a petticoat of
white satin trimmed at the bottom with a Spanish net of
embossed silver, over which was a tunic of the most

116

beautiful silver stuff of Irish manufacture, on which was
woven the shamrock; over the shoulders she wore superb
epaulettes of embossed Spanish silver; the tunic was laced
with diamond chains, and fastened in front with large
diamond brooches: the ear-rings were the largest dia-
monds at the fete, with a corresponding necklace and a
profusion of diamond ornaments.

117

IV

Knowing the proclivities of the Prince, it was imagined
that the Regent would give places to all his entour-
age, and the caricature of ' 'Robing the Prince or the Road
to Preferment 55 showed Earl Grey and Grenville and
Sheridan.

But Brummell received no "preferment", no sinecure.
Strangely enough, with the elevation of the Prince to the
Regency, he seemed to find pleasure in affecting marked
criticism of his royal friend.

The Prince was becoming more amorous and poly-
gamous than ever, and gross to the point of ridicule.
Although Mrs. Fitzherbert still retained her position of
morganatic wife, the Prince now was pursuing the elderly
Marchioness of Hertford. In fact, he had always showed
an inclination towards women who were mature mothers
if not grandmothers. Lady Hertford was of plump con-
tours, but not as fat as Mrs. Fitzherbert; and she was
much haughtier. She lived with her husband in Man-
chester Square, in the house which now contains the
Wallace Collection. With a peculiar touch of delicacy,
the Prince had given her as a token of love the Reynolds's
portraits of "Perdita" Robinson, who had been his old
flame a generation before : some said that it was this now
famous portrait that encouraged the Hertfords, with their
-i 50,000 a year, in the collecting passion. Another queer
side of his ardour for Lady Hertford was that at every
dinner party he gave for her, the Regent expected Mrs.
Fitzherbert to attend.

118

And soon Lady Hertford was succeeded by Lady Bess-
borough who had hazel eyes, glossy auburn hair, pearly
teeth and was a grandmother! It was whispered that the
fat ardent lover, rolling his huge belly from the couch
upon the floor, endeavoured to conquer her with the arm
of politics, and as Lady Bessborough had sworn that she
would yield to his love only if he would make Canning
Prime Minister, he kept repeating " Canning Canning! 35
and reached with his paws for the auburn-haired grand-
mother.

It was known at Carlton House that Brummell was
making jokes about all this. Did Brummell think that his
power was as great as the Prince's ? Did he feel that the
Regency rested on two men: the Regent and Mr. George
Brummell equally resplendent and sovereigns? In Brum-
mell 5 s mind they were not Prince and subject, Patron and
Beau they were one gentleman to another. Had not a
few days previously, the Prince, looking over BrummelFs
superb collection of snuff-boxes at his rooms in South
Street, taken such a fancy to one that he had exclaimed :
"Ah, Brummell, I really think this box must be mine; go
to Gray's and order any box you like in lieu of it." And
he, Brummell had suggested that he might have one with
the Prince's miniature upon the lid, to which the Regent
readily assented. And Brummell had designed the box
himself, with the portrait set around with diamonds. It
was to be a generous memento from the Prince in return
for the exquisite box which Brummell had surrendered.
Indeed, when the miniature was partly executed, the
Prince himself suggested some improvements and altera-
tions, and the work of the jewellers went on,

Yes, the Regent could not do jvithautBrunimell the
gross and babbling Prinny needed, for the lustre of his
Court, has [own Petronius. And if Brummell disapproved,
'"' ' ' " ' '

now and then, of Mrs. Fitzherbert, why should he not do
so? Had he not been chevalier d'honneur at the Prince's
wedding to the unhappy Princess of Wales?

But Mrs. Fitzherbert did not think so. She knew that
Brummell disliked her and criticized her. And she dropped
a hint at Carlton House that George Brummell had the
impudence to laugh at them both behind their backs.

One evening at Lady Jersey's ball, Brummell took it
upon himself to call the carriage of Mrs. Fitzherbert. He
called out, and his voice rang out for all to hear: "Mistress
Fitzherbert's carriage!" Perhaps the Prince did not hear
it there and then, but it was duly reported to Carlton
House.

It was also reported that Brummell had nicknamed the
corpulent Regent "Big Ben" in ridicule of a most regal
hall-porter at Carlton House who was called by every-
one "Big Ben". The Prince was fat indeed by now, fatter
and more huge than a man of fashion, or even a Prince
Regent should be; and Mrs. Fitzherbert's contour was a
good match it was said that Brummell was calling them
"Bier Ben and Benina". Indeed, the nickname spread to

^^wmntanuUUMiMi. .< F; , * in jcW"" '"<'!>. , vJ.sm.mHn * *

all the town; from the clubs it passed into the popular
puns and the Regent was most touchy about his^size
Some little time afterwards there was a party at Clare-
mont, in Surrey, the historic house of the Duke of New-
castle built by Vanbrugh, with domes on pillars at every
corner, and two clock towers. The gardens were bedecked
with statues and fountains and arches and "classic" ruins.
Brummell had not received an invitation and the omis-
sion was clearly intentional, but did he not often attend
parties uninvited as the Prince did from time to time?
To Claremont, therefore, went Brummell in a post-chaise.
But almost at the threshold he came up against "Big Ben".
The Prince was extremely polite but said that the presence

120

of Mr. Brummell was offensive to Mrs. Fitzherbert: "Un-
less you return to London, the party will be ruined." And
he said it in a tone that Mr. Brummell had never heard
before. The post-chaise reappeared at the door, and
Brummell got in and departed to oblige Mrs. Fitzher-
bert.

It was a fatal mistake when Brummell forgot that men
are ruled by women; and Mrs. Fitzherbert still possessed
great influence over the Regent. Indeed her influence was
all the greater because she showed a singular tact in hiding
his weaknesses from the world. She even supervised his
correspondence, advising him not to write to so and so:
"She is careless, and leaves her papers lying about." She
was even heard telling him: "Be quiet. Prince, you are
drunk this evening." And Mrs. Fitzherbert was angry
with Brummell, far more than he would have cared to
know; the Jewish name Benina was rankling deep in her
mind. Yet Brummell now discarded all reserve threw
Court etiquette and precedence of rank to the wind he
seemed bent on seeking his own destruction. (No dif-
ferently did Oscar Wilde behave in the last twelve months
preceding the fateful trials.) Things went round that
seemed really foolish : one day, when the Prince was driv-
ing to the picture gallery in Pall Mall, Brummell was
walking with a friend in the same direction; the royal
carriage, so well known in St. James's because it was
painted dark red and was very low, stopped at the door of
the Exhibition; two sentries at the door presented arms:
Brummell, who happened to pass on the pavement be-
tween the carriage and the door, with an air of grand
dignity raised his hat to the salute, turning his head
graciously towards the sentries and his back to the royal
carriage. It was foolish, it was the joke of a naughty boy.
But inside the carriage, the Prince's face was like thunder.

He said nothing, because he never knew what to say at
the right moment.

Yet the Prince retaliated by repeating everywhere that
"Brummell was only fit to make the reputation of a
tailor"; and to Colonel MacMahon he declared: "I made
him what he is, and I can unmake him as easily. 55

Some day Brummell called at Gray's the jeweUers to
inquire how his snuff-box was progressing. He was in-
formed that the Regent had stopped the order.

It was silly and it was petty, on both sides! Brummell
seemed to forget that the Prince had a revengeful nature.
As Thackeray wrote of him: "The Prince Regent turned
upon twenty friends, fond and familiar with them one
day, and he passed them on the next without recognition. 3 '

One evening, after the Opera, the Prince, who was
leaving, found his way barred by a man in a blue cloak
leaning upon the check-taker's bar quite as if blocking the
exit on purpose. The Prince stopped, nonplussed; the
other man stood yawning at the bar. Up came a gentle-
man in attendance, and tapped the man in blue on the
shoulder. Brummell turned his head with an air of annoy-
ance, eyed the Prince and very slowly moved aside, rais-
ing his hat. Again, the Prince found no words for the
occasion.

At the club, Brummell turned Sir Henry Mildmay and
Tom Moore the poet from "Big Ben's" coterie: Tom
Moore's defection was not so much felt, as the writer of
popular romances had been unpopular at Carlton House
since he had put into circulation the parody about c 'bring-
ing the old King into fashion", but the defection of Mild-
may was keenly felt, for Mildmay had a beautiful and
accomplished wife who was quite a sensation in society.

A story went round that Brummell, after a dinner-
party at Carlton House, had told the Prince: "Wales,

122

ring the bell! 55 The story was not true, for Brummell,
whatever his impudence, could not be so forgetful of
etiquette, and the Prince was very tenacious of his dig-
nity. The story was one of BrummelPs own invention, and
he used to add: "I was on such intimate terms with the
Prince that if we had been alone I could without offence
have asked him to ring the bell, but with a third person
in the room I should never have done so I knew him so
well!"

The estrangement went on increasing. In the month of
April 1812, the four leading members of Watier's, Brum-
mell, Lord Alvanley, Sir Henry Mildmay and Henry
Pierrepoint, decided to give a great ball at the Argyle
Rooms. Should the Prince be invited or not ? He was no
longer on good terms with Brummell, and Sir Henry
Mildmay was pointedly keeping away from Garlton
House. Reason however prevailed: the club could not
ignore and offend the Prince; moreover, it was thought
by many that a gesture of deferential courtesy might help
"to bring old friends together 5 '. Pierrepoint was instructed
to sound Carlton House; the Prince showed alacrity at
the prospect. The four despatched an invitation to the
Prince in the names of all.

On the night of the ball the Prince arrived in good
humour. At the door, the four dandies, candelabra in
hand and wearing elegant fancy costumes, received the
Prince with due ceremony. The Prince bowed to the com-
pany his absurd bow, so incongruous with such a paunch
then he shook hands with Lord Alvanley, he shook
hands with Pierrepoint and muttered some inaudible
words towards Sir Henry Mildmay. Of Brummell he took
no notice whatever. The insult was clear. The whole
company arranged on both sides of the ballroom behind
stood petrified and horrified. Then the ball went on.

123

When the time came for the Prince to leave, Brummell did
not attend him to his carriage with his three friends.

Next day, at Carlton House, the Prince commented
acidly: "Had Brummell taken the cut I gave him good
humouredly, as Mildmay did, I would have renewed my
intimacy with him." But would he really? And would
Mrs. Fitzherbert have given her consent to it?

Some few days afterwards, Brummell was walking down
Bond Street with Lord Alvanley, and suddenly they found
themselves face to face with the Prince leaning, as was his
affectation, on the arm of Lord Moira. The Prince
stopped and talked for a few minutes with Lord Alvanley
to the ex-favourite he did not cast a glance. With his
imperturbable composure Brummell greeted Lord Moira
and discussed the weather. The Prince, then, moved on.
Hardly had the Prince turned to go, when Brummell asked
in a rather loud voice: " Alvanley, who is your fat friend?"
After this there could be no question of reconciliation.

The cause of BrummelTs fall from the Regent's grace
was far deeper than all the current episodes. The old man
in the fireless room at Caen knew only too well that the
story of "Wales, ring the bell!" was apocryphal. The
thing, if true, even for the winning of a bet, would be
vulgar. George Brummell was often impertinent, but
never vulgar.

The real cause of his fall was the same reason that
caused Petronius's fall from Nero's predilection : the Arbiter
Elegantiarum had allowed his satire to wound the Emperor,
to show him up as a ridiculous poetaster and songster,
worse still, as a man of rather vulgar taste, and this neither
Nero nor the Prince Regent could forgive.

Brummell was to the Prince what Petronius had been
to Nero. The Emperor liked Petronius immensely, but
was jealous of his supreme elegance and the wit that he

124

could not equal. The Prince Regent, notwithstanding his
self-given title of "First Gentleman of Europe", was a
gross person. Brummell was elegant and refined, and a
wit. When the Prince thought he could destroy Brummell
by childishly ignoring the Beau who had been his
"model", Brummell lashed the Prince with a quip: "Who
is your fat friend?" So did Petronius destroy Nero as a
poet and man of fashion in a few lines of his Satyricon. At
the height of his success, Brummell felt that he was now
unassailable, that he could dare anything; and he cast the
darts of his witticism against the Prince and against Mrs.
Fitzherbert. Even if the Prince could have swallowed the
pill, the ladies of his harem urged him to action. The
Regent saw with bitterness a half-ruined Dandy disputing
authority with himself, the First Gentleman of Europe.
The incident of the Watier's Ball had been the material-
ization of his displeasure. As a founder of the club, Brum-
mell was pleased to be the host of the Prince from Carl-
ton House, whom now he seldom saw there. But the Prince
forgot that he was the First Gentleman.

At the Watier's Ball the Prince demeaned himself. He
did not even remember the duties which hospitality im-
poses upon those who have accepted it. Brummell, who
had intended to oppose Dandyism with Dandyism, met
the sulky attitude of the Prince with that air of elegant
indifference which was his armour but he had felt the
blow.

Now there was his revenge, that terrible repartee in
Bond Street: "Who is your fat friend?" And this was the
one thing that the Prince, no longer handsome, no longer
Apollonion, could not stand at any price; to be reminded
that his figure was getting too much out of hand even for
his valet. The break was final.

125

V

Not to be without a Court, Brummell now gave him-
self to the Court of the Duchess of York. He had
always been a family friend of the Duchess Frederica. She
was a niece of King Frederick II of Prussia, and had mar-
ried the favourite son of George III. In all truth, the Duke
of York was a man of utter mediocrity. At sixteen he was
a Colonel in command of the English troops intended to
confront Napoleon's armies in Holland and, notwith-
standing defeats, he rose to the rank of Commander-in-
Chief. In love with a Mrs. Clarke, he allowed the lady to
sell commissions in the Army; and when the Duke refused
to pay her a regular allowance, she revealed the secret of
this combination. The Parliamentary inquiry showed that
she had sold commissions in the Army, and as her busi-
ness grew, she had also sold high offices in the Church
and even the right of preaching at Court! Almost every
person of position in England was involved.

The Duchess was aware of the traffic which the Duke
and his mistress had carried on, but she was a person of
great dignity, and her discreet behaviour was in great
contrast with the society which surrounded the Prince of
Wales and his undignified ducal brothers. She was also a
person of excellent taste and a very nice discrimination of
good breeding and manners, and the regard which the
Duchess entertained for Brummell was highly creditable
to him. It may, indeed, be said in favour of the manners
of that day that Her Royal Highness often remarked how
superior they were to the tone of those that existed at the

126

period of her marriage., when the Duke was surrounded
by a set of roues who seemed to glory in their excesses and
showed a great want of refinement and courtesy in
women's society.

The Duchess of York was not only a trts grande dame in
the highest acceptation of the term, but a woman of the
most sound sense and judgment, with a heart full of kind-
ness and charity. By much adroitness and tact she avoided
the cabals and tracasseries which ruled in various branches
of the Royal Family. She retained instead the constant
attachment of her friends. Endowed with a superior mind,
highly cultivated and well read, her conversation was full
of intelligence, blended with great naivete.

The Duchess lived at Oatlands among the pine-woods
of Weybridge; in a rambling sort of big country-mansion,
one feature of which was the number of dogs for which
the Duchess had a great passion. There were some thirty
dogs at Oatlands, and their comfort came before that of
the visitors, who were awakened morning after morning
in the early hours by their barking as they rushed along
the corridors after Dawe the footman who was calling
them to their breakfast. At one time there were upwards of
one hundred dogs at Oatlands, and the Duchess erected
monuments over the graves of her special favourites : the
little monuments were grouped round a fountain in front
of a grotto, to which during the summer months the
Duchess used to retire with her embroidery or a book.

But the Duchess's love of animals extended in many
directions. The gardens at Oatlands had an aviary in
which were eagles and macaws; on the lawn monkeys
played, and in the paddocks nearby could be seen kan-
garoos and ostriches. The company of visitors at Oatlands
was excellent; but the management of the house was,
probably on account of so many animals, somewhat

127

chaotic. Mr. Charles Greville said there were stables Ml
of horses, but never a one to ride, and a houseful of servants
but never anyone to answer a bell. The Duke sat up all
night playing whist, and the meals appeared at odd and
unexpected moments. Still, Oatlands, because of its
hostess and the sparkling wit of the guests, was one of the
most agreeable houses to visit.

BrummeU spent many a Christmas at Oatlands with
the Duke and Duchess of York. Once his Christmas gift
to the Duchess was a gown of Brussels lace which was said
to have cost 150 guineas. The ceremony of presents
giving was the main event at Oatlands : the great dining-
room was converted into a German fair, and booths were
erected round the sides, stored with various commodities.
In the centre was placed a tree, the branches of which
were garnished with oranges, cakes and gingerbread; on
one table at the end of the room were displayed all the
presents which the guests had brought to lay at the feet
of the Duchess; on the other were placed the presents
which Her Royal Highness presented to her friends as a
keepsake. All the servants were admitted in their best
attire.

There are several letters from the Duchess to Brummell,
which showed the friendliness of their intercourse. One
was to thank him for the present of a little dog of rare
breed, which he had sent for the Duchess's fete-day.

Windsor, ce neufde Mai.

"On ne saurait etre plus sensible que je le suis au sou-
venir obligeant que vous avez bien voulu me donner au
jour de ma fete, et au charmant cadeau que le Due m'a
remis de votre part. Recevez mes remerciments les plus
sinceres pour ce joli petit ckien 9 c'est Tembleme de la
Fidelity j'aime a me flatter qu'elle sera celui de la con-

128

Brummett's Crest.

GEORGE BRYAN BRUMMELL

\w, f m

WILLIAM BRUMMELL (FATHER OF BEAU BRUMMELL)

MRS. WILLIAM BRUMMELL (MOTHER OF BEAU BRUMMELL)

GEORGE BRYAN BRUMMELL AS A BOY

p

u
u

I?

B I

It

I

P

BEAU BRUMMELL, AGED 27, AT THE HEIGHT OF HIS REIGN IN LONDON

GEORGE, PRINCE REGENT, AT BRIGHTON PAVILION

(From an engraving after a portrait by Cruikshatik)

FREDERICA, DUCHESS OF YORK

CARLTON HOUSE

A CORNER OF THE GOLDEN DRAWING-ROOM THE GREAT STAIRCASE

EXAMPLES OF THE "DIRECTOIRE" MODE AT CARLTON HOUSE
(Drawn by C. Wild, 1817) (Henry Holland, Architect]

lSl2, OR REGENCY X LA MODE.

(Dra?un and etetied by W* Heath

GEORGIANA, DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE
(From a painting by Thomas Gainsborough in the possession of Earl Spencer}

MRS, FITZ HERBERT

FRANCES, LADY JERSEY

SALON, ROYAL PAVILION, BRIGHTON

BRIGHTON PAVILION: A CONCERT IN THE MUSIC ROOM

(By Joseph Nash)

BEAU BRUMMELL AT CALAIS
(From an etching in Jesse's "Life ofBrumwll", 1844)

THE HOUSE OF MADAME GUERIN DE SAINT-URSIN AT CAEN 3
WHERE BRUMMELL LIVED FROM 1830-1832

47, RUE DBS CARMESj CAEN

tinuation de notre amitie a laquelle je vous assure que
j'attache le plus grand prix.

"J'ai une toux de cimetiere qui menace mine; si elle ne
m'a pas mis sous terre avant le commencement du mois
prochain, je compte me rendre a Londres, dans ce temps-
la, et un des motifs qui me fait envisager avec le plus de
plaisir ce sejour est qu'il me procurera Pavantage de vous
y recontrer et de pouvoir vous reiterer moi-meme combien
je suis,

Votre toute affectionee amie et servante,

F."

There is also another letter, written to acknowledge the
receipt of a note announcing the loss of a lottery ticket
which they had purchased together: the paragraph allud-
ing to the chances of his future life is happily expressed.

"I cannot say how pleased I am by the kind wishes which you
have sent me for my birthday, and the charming present which the
Duke forwarded to me from you. Pray accept my sincere thanks
for the pretty little dog; it is an emblem of fidelity, and I am
pleased to flatter myself that it will be emblematical of the nature
of our friendship^ upon which I place the greatest value.

"I have a racking cough, which seems likely to be the death of
me, and if it has not finished me off by the beginning of next
month, I hope to return to London by that time, and one of the
pleasantest prospects of my stay will be the pleasure of meeting
you, and of finding an opportunity to repeat that I am ever your
affectionate friend and servant,

x

Oatlands, ce 20 Septembre.

"Vous avez une maniere siaimabled'annoncerlesplus
mauvaises nouvelles, qu'elles perdent par la de leur
desagrements; je ne puis cependant que m'affliger avec
vous de la perte de tous nos beaux projets de fete, qui

129

s'evanouissent avec la perte de notre billet de loterie, dont
je vous acquitte la dette ci-joint, et y joignent les voeux
les plus sinceres que ceci puisse etre le dernier mauvais
tour que la Fortune puisse vous jouer, et que dans toutes
les autres circonstances de votre vie, elle puisse toujours
vous 6tre favorable. Ce sera me rendre justice que de vous
persuader que personne ne peut s'interesser plus sin-
cerement a votre bonheur et a tout ce qui vous concerne.
"Je n'ai rien a vous dire de ma solitude qui puisse
exciter votre curiosite, n'y ayant vu personne de ceux qui
vous interessent depuis votre depart. J'espere que vous
reviendrez bientot dans ces contrees, et qu'il me sera
permis de vous reiterer moi-meme ici les assurances de
ramitie sincere et de la consideration parfaite avec laquelle
je suisj

Votre toute affectionee amie et servante >

F."

"Tou announce your bad news so gracefully that it loses all its
unpleasantness" she writes from the country. "However, I cannot
but share your regret at the loss of all our proposed festivities,
which have disappeared with the loss of our lottery ticket; I send
my share in this herewith, and I hope most sincerely with you that
it may be Fortune's last ill turn to us, and that in every other cir-
cumstance of your life she may always be favourable to you. In
justice to myself^ you may be persuaded that no one can be more
sincerely interested in your happiness and in all that concerns you.

"I have no news to give you of my solitude that may excite
your curiosity, as I have seen no-one of interest to you since you
left. I hope that you will soon return to this country and it will be
possible for me to express to you in person my assurance of my
friendship and the sincerity with which I sign myself your very
affectionate friend and servant,

F."

130

VI

In January of 1814 the Thames froze. It was a fantastic
spectacle ; the floating masses of ice having been stopped
by London Bridge, now assumed a solid surface over the
river from Blackfiiars Bridge to some distance below
Three Crane Stairs at the bottom of Queen Street, Cheap-
side. By the 2nd of February the Thames was a complete
"Frost Fair", with a Grand Mall, named "The City
Road", lined on both sides with booths and stalls. Amuse-
ments were held on the frozen river, "Lapland Mutton"
was roasted and sold on the ice-fair.

But at the end of March much greater news excited
London : the fall of Napoleon. On the nth April a Treaty
between the Allied Powers and Napoleon was signed. It
was Easter Monday, and London was given a grand
illumination, much greater than the illuminations which,
from time to time had^ punctuated the victories in that
long combat that had been the wars against France. It
was the illumination for Peace, welcomed by all with
thankful hearts; Carlton House had its pillars entwined
with lamps; the statue of King Charles I was covered
with laurels. Louis XVIII, le desirt, was laid up with gout
at Hartwell in Buckinghamshire, and did not hurry him-
self to enter into his kingdom across the water; but on the
soth of April he had to face a public reception in London:
the Prince Regent with many of the nobility met him at
Stanmore; his postillions were clad in white, with white
hats and white cockades. This fancy for exhibiting white
in honour of the white Bourbon flag, took odd expressions,

for some people hung from their windows sheets and pil-
lows. Louis XVIII entered London by Kilburn, traversed
in procession Hyde Park, and down Piccadilly, and by
Albemarle Street went to Grillons Hotel. Here the new
King of France, leaning on the arm of the Regent,
hobbled into a drawing-room and sank, exhausted, into
an arm-chair. The next day, at Carlton House, he was
made a Knight of the Garter; then he held a levee at
Grillon's Hotel, and on the morning of the 2 3rd left
London for Dover, to embark for France. On this day,
23rd of April, the war between England and France was
officially ended.

On the ist of May the Marquis of Wellington was
created a Duke, and in the same month the House of
Commons granted him an annuity of 10,000 in addition
to the other grants already bestowed.

There was Peace, the panacea for all evils. During all
that year, and the successive year, London saw an inces-
sant flow of foreign visitors and troops returning home
from the long war. The Regent was more than ever deep
in debt; in 1787 his debts had been 161,020; in 1795
they had amounted to 640,000; from 1812 to May 1815
there was paid for his debts in various amounts the sum
of 341,000; and in May 1815 there remained still un-
paid 339,000. But what was such a grand total of
1,480,600 of royal debts when the Regent could, in all
splendour, celebrate the victory of Waterloo? On the 4th
of August, from the Bellerophon at sea, Napoleon was send-
ing his formal and futile protest; the Regent was severely
remarked on for his conduct to his illustrious captive; but
the epic was closed and there only remained to write the
last canto of St. Helena* And neither London nor Europe
cared.

The English troops had come back from Spain: after

132

Waterloo, Wellington and his lieutenants, Lord Anglesey,
Lord Raglan, Sir Hussey Vivian, were followed by
Bliicher with the Prussian and Hanoverian Commanders.
London was swarming with foreign uniforms, gigantic
plumes, colossal busbys, shakos and kepis of every kind.

All these troops and foreigners had their pockets full of
money. There were balls, festivals, entertainments in the
houses, at Almack's, in the clubs. Every evening, before
dinner, there was a promenade in Hyde Park where the
people could point out the Regent on horseback in great
pomp, escorted by the most handsome and musical Sir
Benjamin Bloomfield, his new favourite, and Lord Sefton,
hunchbacked but regarded as the most exquisite of Dan-
dies ; and there were the Ladies Molyneux and Welling-
ton, most cheered, and old Blucher, unpolished of man-
ners but the object of wild enthusiasm; and there was
Lady Mountjoy, the Duchess of Rutland, in her coach
with her lackeys powdered and looking like archbishops.
The cows and deer ran amid the trees of the park and the
streams crossed the grass and lawns. It was a great and
almost romantic sight.

At night there was furious gambling. Gay and gallant
Guardsmen, tired of roughing it at the front on a beef-
steak and a bottle of port, lost no time in making love as
ardently as they had made war, and in losing their back
pay that had accumulated thanks to a "disease" under
which the army, especially the army in Spain, had
severely suffered, "an affection of the military chest".

Elder brothers, who, for sake of posterity, had not gone
to the war, were obligated to contribute and all these
levies found their way to the green-cloth tables. Some of
the St. James's Clubs, whose list of members included
most of the noble names of England, were now like
White's, political clubs, but play was carried on in them

133

to an extent which made many ravages in large family
fortunes. General Scott, father-in-law of George Canning
and the Duke of Portland, was known to have won at
White's 200,000 thanks to his sobriety and knowledge
of the game of whist: but the General possessed a great
advantage over his partners, for he confined himself to
dining off boiled-chicken with toast and water. On such
a diet he could sit at the green-table with a^ clear head;

At Brooks's the play was of a more gambling character;
Faro and Macao were played for high stakes throughout
the night; Lord Robert Spencer contrived to lose the last
shilling of his considerable fortune, given him by his
brother, the Duke of Marlborough ; General Fitzpatrick
was in the same condition and the two agreed to raise a
sum of money to keep a Faro bank: Lord Spencer bagged
100,000 and retired and never gambled again. George
Harley Drummond, of the famous Banking House in
Charing Cross, once lost 20,000 to Brummell, and it was
the only time the banker had played in his life. And at
Watier's the game, Macao, went on even more furiously.
After a long night of hard play, the losers found them-
selves at the establishment of c 'Howard and Gibbs", most
fashionable moneylenders, signing complicated deeds of
"annuities".

Meanwhile what was Brummell doing? Still smarting
under the break with the Regent, he was careful to put in
appearance everywhere; he strolled down King Street to
Almack's talking to the Duke of Wellington, the hero of
the season; and the Duke was fond of Brummell, for he
was big enough a man to appreciate that Brummell had
won his victories in the drawing-rooms of London, and
it was as hard a battlefield as any!

But a certain decline was taking place in Brummell. As

long as he lived in the entourage of Carl ton House, he had
made so good and judicious a use of his income that he
succeeded in posing as a wealthy man, appearing much
wealthier than he really was, and he had maintained his
place among the greatest names of the kingdom, all cer-
tainly much wealthier than himself. He did not go to the
clubs to bet or to gamble ; and on the occasion when he had
a game of cards, fortune was on his side and he usually won.
It was said that at one time or another he had won big sums.

But jtfter-the break with the Regent and the return of
the officers from the war, he succumbed to the general
inclination, and took to gambling heavily. He lost, and the
more he lost the more he gambled in the vain hope of
recouping his losses.

The man in the mean room at Caen knew it only too
well that the "decline and fall" was not actually caused
by the quarrel witH te Prince. It was caused by a much
more simple and dreadful reason, lack of funds. A man
of fashion should always be a duke, or have the income of
a duke. George Brummell did not possess inexhaustible
means, and when his own fair, but utterly insufficient
funds came to an end, the decline set in to be followed
by the inevitable fall.

A man of fashion, a truly elegant man such as George
Brummell was, should be spared the worries of monetary
embarrassment. One cannot be always exquisite in man-
ners if one must contemplate a mundane outlook. One
shrinks, at first, from approaching a friend "to touch
him", such a distasteful thing for both parties! One bor-
rows, at first it seems easy, one is inclined to forget that
some day one will have to repay the money one spends
so easily. Then, one must learn the "art of borrowing 55 :
and it is not an easy art. One makes slips, shuddering at
first, later on with a mere shrug one must live somehow !

135

And the fall awaits round the corner. That's all. And one
is no longer a man of fashion.

The handsome sum of 20,000 which he had won from
the banker Drummond, Brummell lost at White's in five
nights. He cried aloud: "I have lost my last shilling! I
wish someone would bind me never to play again !" His
friend Pemberton Mills, who was standing by, angrily
watching his dear friend persist in such madness, called
up: "I will." Mills handed Brummell a ten-pound note,
and said: "You will forfeit a thousand if you play again
at White's within a month. 53 Brummell took it and walked
out with his friend. But in a few nights he was there again,
losing heavily. His friend Mills tapped him on the shoul-
der : "Now you should forfeit a thousand, but at least you
should give me back the ten pounds. 55

Everything he did at the tables went wrong. At that time
he lost a silver sixpence with a hole in it, which had been
given him, years before, by a gipsy with the injunction that
he should take care of it for everything would go well with
him as long as he had it. In an evil hour, by mistake, Brum-
mell gave the sixpence to a hackney coachman. Frantically
he advertised for it but never found it again.

He changed his residence, in a half-hearted attempt to
economize, superstitiously hoping that it might change
his luck. From the^imposmg, house in South Street he
moved, to. NcuaS Gkapel Street It was a more modest
residence, a house belonging to a certain Hart, steward to
the Duke of Gloucester. It was next to a mews, rather dis-
tasteful for the Beau who, in former times, had objected
to country gentlemen at the club, "redolent of stables and
bad blacking". The house in Chapel Street had a draw-
ing-room and a back-sitting-room and, of course, a din-
ing-room. Brummell, who had quietly sold some of his
best Buhl furniture, moved to Chapel Street many beau-

136

tiful pieces, and the artistic objects that were, like his
friends, part of his very life. There was, in the dining-room,
the fine silver and cutlery, and the Sevres dinner-service,
and the fine wine-coolers, and the silver tea-kettle em-
bossed and chased in the fashion of the day, for he must
still contrive to give occasional dinner-parties, although
he had dispensed with his cook, the man who for years had
made his dinners a social event. In his dressing-room there
was the delightful wash-basin and ewer, in gold china and
mazarine blue, the ewer with a silver handle, and the
whole richly decorated with exotic birds finely painted in
compartments, each with the name lettered in. There was
still, of course, his cheval-glass, with ormolu arms for
candles and in his new drawing-room there was his chintz-
covered furniture and a good Brussels carpet. On the walls
hung portraits of the old King, and of Lord North, bene-
factor of the Brummells ; and the portrait of Nelson and
Pitt, and one of his own friend the young Duke of Rut-
land. There were prints by Cipriani and Bartolozzi, and
the back-sitting-room formed the library and studio. The
books not too scholarly, they were the books of a worldly
man of good taste in reading as in everything else. Some
good historical works, the standard Poets, two editions of
Shakespeare, his friend Ellis's Specimens of Early English
Metrical Romances, bound in curiously raised calf; the
Memoirs of de Grammont, Berrington's Abelard and Eloisa, a
collection of novels, all beautifully bound.

Losses at cards always go hand-in-hand with debts
and debts, in turn, involve moneylenders. Occasionally,
Brummell had recourse to moneylenders before the
period of his downfall and so had his intimate noble
friends. There was almost a comforting pleasure in think-
ing that Lord Robert Manners and Lord Alvanley had

137

thought it quite proper to make debts together with their
friend Brummell. One wonders, who had gone to discuss
the deal with the moneylenders? Were the deals signed
and delivered at BrummelTs rooms ? Even more one is
left wondering at the lack of business sagacity in Brum-
mell, no less than in his noble friends.

Some years ago at Belvoir Castle, the home of the Duke
of Rutland, some papers and manuscripts came to light in
the muniment room, and among these papers a number
of covenants were found, made jointly by George Brum-
mell and Lord Robert Manners to pay annuities in return
for sums received. There is one dated the 2gth May 181 1,
covenanted between George Bryan Brummell, Esq. and
Lord Robert Manners to pay an annuity of 100 to Wil-
liam Walker of South Lambeth, in return for the sum of
600 to be paid by the said William Walker to George
Brummell and Lord Robert Manners. Another is similar,
the annuity being 180 against a capital sum paid to
Brummell and Lord Manners of i, 080. There is another
paper dated three years later, signed only by Lord Charles
Manners. In all there are six documents, the total sum
handed by the annuitants to Brummell and Lord Man-
ners being 4,816, and the amount to be paid annually
during the joint lives of Brummell and the Lords Robert
and Charles Manners being 744. Considering that in
181 1 Brummell and Lord Robert were about thirty-three
years old and in 1814 Lord Charles was about the same
age, in less than seven years they would have paid back
the whole sum and be indebted to pay over a thousand
pounds a year for the rest of their lives !

Lord Alvanley had, at that time, the knack of disap-
pearing periodically across the water, whenever he felt it
was prudent to withdraw from the too greedy hands of a
tenacious creditor. Brummell could still manage to spurn

138

a creditor with an impertinent pun. One day, in a crowded
room at White's one of his creditors felt he could openly ask
Brummell for the return of a loan. He was a young nouveau
riche who had longed for election to the club, and had
gained Brummell's support with the loan of a thousand
guineas. Brummell thought the request of repayment in
detestable taste, and without moving a muscle, replied:
"I thought I had repaid it." The other fellow opened his
eyes wide: "When ?" "You ask when? Why, the day
before yesterday, when I was at the window, and saw you
passing in the street, and I said: 'Good-day Jimmy, how
are you? 5 " It was witty, it was impudent, it was in
Brummell style; but it was unwise, and it lowered his
prestige. To be in debt was one thing; to avow that he
had taken a "loan 55 in payment for sponsoring a nouveau
riche's entry into a fashionable club was a different thing
altogether; worse still, it was indelicate.

The climax came in May 1816. The best version, and
the bitterest, as the old gentleman of Caen learnt with a
deep frown when he had read it in after years! is the
version given by Harriette Wilson, the courtesan, in her
Memoirs. (Harriette Wilson, the old gentleman thought,
had always hated him she had been jealous of George
Brummell in the days of his glory, that's what she was, the
cunning bitch, jealous of him!) She says in her Memoirs:

"Brummell, Alvanley and Worcester agreed to raise
thirty thousand pounds, on their joint securities. Brum-
mell, having made Worcester believe that he was, at
least, competent to pay the interest of the debt, the money
was raised, and the weight of the debt was expected to
fall on the Duke of Beaufort, who, after strict inquiry,
partly ascertained that Brummell was deeply involved,
and without even the most remote prospect of ever pos-
sessing a single guinea. When Meyler heard this, he be-

139

came furious, both on his friend Worcester's account, and
his own, declaring that BrummeU had borrowed seven
thousand pounds from him, which he had lent, in the
fullest conviction that BrummeU was a man of honour.

"I asked Meyler how he could be so very stupid as to
have been deceived, even for an instant, about BrummeU ?
e Why, did not everybody think so ?' 'Certainly not. Brum-
meU was pretty generally known for a man destitute of
feeling, or principle; but he looked well, at an assembly,
and was the fashion. 3 fi l would forgive him the seven thou-
sand pounds he has robbed me of; but, on Worcester's
account, I shaU expose him tomorrow at White's!' 'Why
not let Worcester fight his own battles ?' 'That's just what,
for the Duchess of Beaufort's sake, I wish to prevent/ 'I
think you may trust Worcester, who has no sort of inclina-
tion to fight BrummeU, nor anybody else. 3 'No matter.
BrummeU I wiU certainly expose; because he has basely
obtained a sum of money from my friend.' 'So has Lord
Alvanley.* 'But then Lord Alvanley may, at least, contrive
to pay the interest; therefore it was not so complete a
fraud. Nevertheless, I hold it my duty, as an independent
gentleman, never to give my countenance, nor society, to
a man who has done a dishonourable action. I shall, there-
fore, cut Lord Alvanley wherever I meet him, notwith-
standing no man delights more in his amusing qualities,
than I do; but believing that society would be so much
improved, by general firmness of this kind, no power on
earth should prevail on me to swerve from this, my fixed
determination. 3

* 'Meyler strictly adhered to this resolution, to the day
of his death. Even when he met Lord Alvanley, in the
Duchess of Beaufort's box, or no matter where, he never
spoke to him again. Alvanley used to raU at Meyler for
this, as might, naturaUy, be expected, calling him a

140

d d methodistical grocer, etc. The little sugar-baker

kept his promise of exposing Mr. Brummell, at White's
Club, where he placed himself, the following morning,
for the sole purpose of saying to every man, who entered,
that Mr. Brummell's late conduct, both towards the
Marquis of Worcester and himself, had been such as
rendered him a disgrace to society, and most unfit to
remain a member of that club. Tom Raikes, I believe it
was, who acquainted Brummell the next day, of this
glowing panegyric on his character.

"Brummell addressed a few lines to Meyler, begging to
be informed if such had, really and truly been the expres-
sions made use of. Meyler answered that, not only had he
used the expression, but, that he further proposed to re-
turn to the club, on the following day, for the sole purpose
of repeating them, between the hours of two and four, to
anybody who might happen to be present, and, if Mr.
Brummell had anything to say to him in return, he would
be sure to find him at White's during that particular

time. 55

Brummell never made his appearance in London after
the receipt of this letter, which gained Meyler the nick-
named of the Dandy-killer. Yes, poor Meyler got for his
pains in exposing Brummell the nickname of "Dick the
Dandy-killer 53 . We have the confirmation of Byron for this.
And in those days, the spring of 1 8 1 6, Brummell was think-
ing: Oh, if he could only go like Byron, who in April had
set forth to Ostend, complete with his carriage and ser-
vants and leaving no liabilities behind but women ! Byron
who still spoke with admiration and envy of Brummell:
( 'There are but three great men in the nineteenth cen-
tury, Brummell, Napoleon and myself. 35 But since the loss
of die sixpenny piece with a hole in it, a cloud had hung
over BrummelPs fame as well as his fortunes; the prestige

141

of his name was going, his fiat was no longer regarded;
pubHc events had eclipsed him, and the ladies of the
beau-monde were far more interested in hero-worship, or in
procuring a hair from the tail of PlatofTs horse, than
securing the good opinion of the once all-powerful Prince
of Fashions.

In May he decided to go. He prepared for his flight
for a flight it had to be! with his habitual composure
and deliberation, making sure of the success and the effect
as he had once studied the effect and the success of his
famous cravat. Some of his friends, perhaps guessing, lent
a friendly hand, though their resources were, alas, at low
ebb as well. Some of the beautiful things were quietly

packed the silver, some valuable and beautiful vases of

Sevres, but he left behind with much regret the famous
ewer and wash-bowl in mazarine blue decorated with
exotic birds; he packed instead the blue velvet album with
silver corners and clasps. On the afternoon of May i6th
he wrote a note to Scrope Davies :

"My dear Scrope,

Lend me two hundred pounds. The banks are shut, and
all my money is in the three per cents. It shall be repaid
tomorrow.

Yours, GEORGE BRUMMELL."

Davies sent this immediate reply:

"My dear George,

It's unfortunate, but all my money is in the three per
cents.

Yours, S. DAVIES."

The reply was not precisely charitable, but it was pert
in Brummeirs style. And the Beau read it with a cynical
smile. He then dressed carefully, with his familiar blue

142

coat, black trousers and white waistcoat and striped
stockings, looked at himself for the last time in the cheval-
glass in his dressing-room, and sat down to dinner and
dined off a cold fowl sent in by Watier's, and a bottle of
his own famous claret. The service and the Sevres were
as perfect as ever.

Then he put on his cloak, his opera-hat, and by a hack-
ney carriage he went to the Opera. A noble friend had
already arranged for a post-chaise to stand ready for him,
near the theatre door. He sat idly at the Opera in his box,
nodding at friends and ladies on right and left, suave,
charming, amusing, his usual self, turning his steady and
cynical eyes upon the brilliant scene he would never see
again. He left early; stepped into the chaise, and vanished.
At an agreed point he joined his own carriage, loaded with
the few belongings he was taking with him; and as fast as
post-horses could carry him, drove through the night to
Dover.

Before dawn he was aboard a vessel, and made sail for
the coast of France. Some hours later George Brurnmell
disembarked at Calais. He was thirty-eight.

PART THREE

The Beau in Exile

Brummell arrived in Calais on the lyth of May, and
went right away to the fashionable Hotel Dessein's.
The first thing he did was to sell to the proprietor, M.
Quillacq, his carriage that he had brought on the ship
with him : from that moment he did not anticipate further
use for a post-chaise.

Calais was, at that time, a sanctuary of English debtors.
It was teeming with fashionable and not so fashionable
gentlemen who found it most convenient to shake off the
dust of England on the ramparts of Calais. At Dessein's
described by Thackeray and drawn by Rowlandson
Brummell was served with the same fricassee of chicken
which the Reverend Sterne, travelling in the desobligeante
lined with green taffeta, had recorded in his Sentimental
Journey. The following day, with much tact, he wrote a
letter to his two great friends, the Lords Charles and
Robert Manners:

Calais^ May i8 y 1816.
"Dear Lords Charles and Robert,

"Persecuted to the worst extent by those to whom I was
indebted, without resource or even the hope to evade or
protract the execution of those menaces which, I was well
assured, would have been instantly enforced against my
personal liberty, I have been driven to the only alterna-
tive yet left me upon earth that of quitting my country
for ever. I am indeed most sensible, most acutely so, of the
heavy wrongs which such a step must inflict upon those
who from their former friendly regard for me were in-

147

duced to impose themselves a future charge for my im-
mediate assistance. I will not endeavour to palliate the
past or the present such an endeavour would be vain
and only justly prove an aggravation of my misconduct.
I have no extenuation to advance beyond the desire to
retain the only blessing, if such it can be called, still within
my reach, which is personal freedom and even that I
would have voluntarily yielded could I have felt assured
its surrender might in any way have exonerated you from
the trust in which you have been involved on my account.
The responsibility would still have existed the same on
your parts had I forfeited myself to a gaol.

"In acknowledging my obligations to you, for great they
are, and in lamenting my inability to repay them, I still
feel anxious in the wish to realize the promised power of
future remuneration. It was very far from my deliberate
intention to retire to another country and encumber you
with the responsibility incurred for my service without
even indemnifying you from risk in the event of death, by
insuring my life, but that would now have been of no avail
for my departing from England would have annulled the
policies. It was the pressure of circumstances which com-
pelled me to adopt so precipitate, and I will say so dis-
graceful, a measure at the exigence of the moment.

"The last remaining hope of my broken fortunes consists
in a considerable sum of money now vested in the Court
of Chancery which must ultimately become mine. This
reversion I abandon legally and willingly to you. It is the
last proof of honourable feeling I can leave in your hands
to show that, although unfortunate and inconsiderate, I
am not destitute of strong feeling and gratitude towards
those who have been so seriously my friends.

"Whatever construction you may place upon my past
conduct I trust you will do me the justice to believe that

148

in this last act of restitution I deprive myself of every
worldly support, I abandon my country a beggar and I
can look forward to no means of subsistence beyond the
year yet I feel some remote satisfaction in the idea that
the slight reparation I am offering is everything that is
left to your former friend

GEORGE BRUMMELL."

It was most proper that he should so write to the two
friends who were co-signatories with him of the fatal
annuities, and which their wealthy father, the Duke of
Rutland, would have no alternative but to buy up. Four
days later he wrote to his friend Thomas Raikes, and it
was clear from this letter that he was taking his exile with
good calm and poise.

Calais, May 22, 1816.

"Here I am restant for the present, and God knows
solitary enough in my existence. Of that, however, I
should not complain, for I can always employ resources
within myself, was there not a worm that will not sleep,
called conscience, which all my endeavours to distract,
all the strength of coffee, with which I constantly fumigate
my unhappy brains, and all the native gaiety of the fellow
who brings it to me, cannot lull to indifference beyond
the moment; but I will not trouble you upon that subject.

"You would be surprised to find the sudden change and
transfiguration which one week has accomplished in my
life and propria persona. I am punctually off the pillow at
half-past seven in the morning. My first object melan-
choly, indeed, it may be in its nature is to walk to the
pier-head and take my distant look at England. This you
may call weakness; but I am not yet sufficiently master
of those feelings which may be called indigenous to resist
the impuke.

"The rest of my day is filled with strolling an hour or two
round the ramparts of this dismal town, in reading, and
the study of that language which must hereafter be my
own, for never more shall I set foot in my own country.
I dine at five, and my evenings have as yet been occupied
in writing letters.

"The English I have seen here and many of them
known to me I have cautiously avoided; and with the
exception of Sir W. Bellingham and Lord Blessington,
who have departed, I have not exhanged a word. Prince
Esterhazy was here yesterday, and came into my room
unexpectedly without my knowing he was here. He had
the good nature to convey several letters for me upon his
return to London. So much for my life hitherto on this
side of the water.

"As to the alteration in my looks, you will laugh when I
tell you your own head of hair is but a scanty possession
in comparison with that which now crowns my pristine
baldness; a convenient, comely scalp, that has divested
me of my former respectability of appearance (for what
right have I now to such an outward sign ?) and if the care
and distress of mind which I have lately undergone had
not impressed more ravages haggard and lean than my
years might justify upon my unfortunate phiz, I should
certainly pass at a little distance forjive-and-twenty"

He had been the King of Fashion he knew that exiled
kings never return. They leave behind only a regret. Soon
the echo reached him of the sale of his things at Chapel
Street. The sale was ordered by the Sheriffs of Middlesex
at the pressing request of Brummell's creditors, and James
Christie, the Auctioneer,,, prepared arid-advertised .the
sale, which took plaoe only five days after Brummell's
flight, on the 22nd of May. The catalogue was a delight.

150

A Catalogue

of
A very choice and valuable assemblage

of

Specimens of the rare old Sevres Porcelaine,

Articles of Buhl Manufacture,

Curiously Chased Plate,

Library of Books,
Chiefly of French, Italian and English Literature, the best

Editions, and in fine condition.

The admired Drawing of the Refractory School Boy, and
others, exquisitely finished by Holmes, Christall,

de Windt, and Stephanoff.
Three capital double-barrelled Fowling Pieces,

By Manton.
Ten dozen of capital Old Port, sixteen dozen of Claret

(Beauvais), Burgundy, Claret and Still Champagne,

The whole of which have been nine years in bottle in the

Cellar of the Proprietor;

Also, an

Assortment of Table and other Linen, and some

Articles of neat Furniture;

The genuine property of

A MAN OF FASHION,

Gone to the Continent;

Which,

By order of the Sheriff of Middlesex!
Will be sold by Auction

By Mr. Christie,

On the premises, No. 13 Chapel Street, Park Lane,
On Wednesday, May 22nd, and the following day.

On reading this catalogue, Brummell had thought of
his drawing-room which had a chimney-glass in a carved

15*

ebony frame, chintz furniture and a Brussels carpet; the
back drawing-room had also a chimney-glass, book-
shelves, and library bookcase. And his dinner-service had
consisted of twelve oval dishes, twenty soup-plates,
seventy-eight meat-plates, nine wine-coolers; there was a
breakfast-service for eight persons, three claret jugs,
twelve hock glasses, forty wine glasses, decanters, etc.
There were sixteen pairs of sheets, forty huckaback towels,
and napkins. And he thought of the superb pair of oval
Sevres vases, which the newspaper said had sold for nine-
teen guineas: they were green, with flowers and fruit, and
mouldings of burnished gold. The small cup and cover of
the same Sevres china had fetched eighteen pounds; but
his famous ewer and basin, mazarine-blue-and-gold
ground, richly ornamented with birds and exotics finely
painted in compartments, with the name of each speci-
men upon them, the ewer with a handle of silver, had
only fetched twenty-six pounds. He almost felt a prick of
pride in reading that his silver tea-kettle, embossed and
chased, had reached the price of forty-seven pounds. The
set of prints, "A Family Party Dinner 35 , fetched eighty-
five guineas. It was natural that a crowd of fashionable
people should have attended the sale and the papers
mentioned Lord Bessborough, Lord Yarmouth, Lady
Warburton, Sir W. Burgoyne, General Phipps, Mr. Mills.
The Duke of York was not there in person, but had given
orders fojr some Sevres china to be bought for him. He
wondered who had bought his letter-scale made as a
Cupid weighing a heart with a brace of doves, in ormolu
on a black marble plinth. The Beauvais claret, for which
the Beau's table had been famous, sold for five pounds
eight shillings the dozen bottles; the champagne, three
pounds five shillings; the port, four pounds five shillings.
Well, somebody was going to enjoy his cellar! Ah, some-

one had wondered why there were only six silver spoons
and four forks? Alas, they had to be left behind as they
had been used for his last meal !

The sale, the papers said, had realized eleven hundred
pounds; but it was quite clear that Brummell had man-
aged to get away some of his most cherished things. The
competition among the buyers for knick-knacks and
objets-de-vertu had been very keen, everyone apparently
keen in securing a personal memento. When Mr. Christie
had put up a very handsome snuff-box, on opening it it
was found to contain a piece of paper with these words :
"This snuff-box was intended for the Prince Regent, if
he had conducted himself with more propriety towards
me." It was the Parthian shaft!

After some two or three months at Dessein's, Brummell
felt he would like to be again chez-soi in an apartment;
and looking round in Calais, he found in the Rue Royale,
just off the Place d'Armes, in a house which had formerly
been the Hotel d'Angleterre, a bookseller's shop at the
sign of Le Paume Diable.

The name, he felt, was suited to the circumstances;
Brummell went in, and met Monsieur Leleux. M. Leleux
was definitely ax^haxac^STTroni the moment he raised
his odd cap with a snipe-bill peak to his visitor who
gravely responded raising his Lock's hat, Brummell saw
that M. Leleux, the best Jbooiseller of Calais, was defin-
itely a character. They chatted of books and of travels,
Leleux putting his visitor at ease with his excellent Eng-
lish. Leleux had a military bearing. He had acquired it,
he said, in the Garde Nationale. So had his visitor been
an officer; but no, he had not served during the wars.
Leleux revealed, instead, that he had been in the tent of
Francisco Miranda, the Dictator of Venezuela. From the

153

life of the camp he had now retired to the peaceful and
philosophical life of a bookseller in quiet Calais. And he
proffered his box of snuff. c Would M. Leleux taste a pinch of
his own personal mixture? 5 ' And Brummell opened, with
his inimitable flick of the left thumb, his own beautiful box.
And he mentioned what was in his mind: cc Could M. Le-
leux suggest and recommend him a good lodging ? He was
still at Dessein's, quite comfortable, but not as comfortable
as it might be in his own apartment and rooms. . . ."

"Nothing could be simpler," answered the old soldier
of venture; he himself had, above the shop, some very
convenient rooms. And they ascended together the stair-
case to the first floor. Leleux opened the doors: "This
could be a drawing-room, this one, which is adjoining,
would make a good dining-room; they are both front
rooms ; the one on the other side of the passage could be a
most convenient bedroom."

Brummell liked the rooms, and even more he liked the
landlord. They were to remain friends for fourteen years.
Many years afterwards, M. Leleux used to speak with
admiration of his former tenant: "Le pauvre monsieur
etait si amusant, qu'on ne pouvait rien lui refuser! Sir,
I would have kept him for nothing if he would have
stayed; ah, he certainly was a very droll fellow! 35

No sooner was Brummell in possession of the rooms
than he set about furnishing them in the most elegant
and expensive manner. He had not much money, alas,
but he was certainly going to re-create the atmosphere of
Chesterfield Street (of the house in South Street he pre-
ferred not to think for it was a memory that he would
rather sponge away from his mind) .

He went therefore to a banker, M.Jacques Leveux, and
deposited with him .1,000, that is the handsome sum of
25,000 francs. The banker had been recommended by the

154

landlord Leleux, and Brumniell found the name quite ac-
ceptable. There was indeed a kind of whimsicality in having
henceforth his existence divided and distributed between
Leleux and Leveux. (And also the banker Leveux would,
in after years, say like the landlord Leleux: "One could
refuse him nothing; he was simply a seductive person! 33 )

Leleux and Leveux introduced him to a courier, and
this man of business ordered and purchased for him all
the furniture he required for his salon and his bed-
chamber. Even in exile Brummell retained his taste for
the resplendent Buhl furniture, heavy, massive and
colourful; and it was a most pleasant diversion to furnish
the three rooms in the elegant and costly style of Louis
Quatorze. Sometimes a delightful cabinet did not fit
pleasantly enough, and it had to be sent back to Paris and
disposed of, of course at a little loss; but the courier took
on himself all these troubles and worries, and his client
Monsieur Brummell was a gentleman who did not bother
about money, as long as the result was satisfactory. At
length, after incalculable pains, and many anxious days,
Brummell managed, in spite of poverty, to complete the
furnishing of his three rooms in a style that could not be
improved even by the most fastidious collector. In the
drawing-room there was a large cabinet with doors en-
closed by shining brass-wire in elegant pattern, and in
this cabinet was displayed a service of Sevres, decorated
with portraits of the beauties of the Courts of Louis XIV
and Louis XV; the visitors called it BrummelTs harem in
a Buhl seraglio. Brummell was so enchanted and proud of
those beauties painted on Sevres that he used to inform
his visitors that it was "almost profanation even to look
at these frail fair ones".

The walls of this room were covered with pictures and
prints, a few of these pictures being by the brush of a young

155

Calais artist who Brummell decided to patronize by way
of encouragement. Some books, in handsome bindings of
morocco or silk, rested upon card-tables ; and in the centre
of the room, upon a fine Aubusson carpet, was a circular
table crowded with a collection of valuable snuff-boxes,
miniatures, card-cases, paperweights, little portfolios, in
every variety of gold, enamel, mother-of-pearl, ivory and
tortoiseshell, embossed leather and embroidered satin.
Among this collection there was an ormolu greyhound, a
paperweight of Siena marble topped by a small bronze
eagle which had been presented to Brummell by Monsieur
de Montrond, Talleyrand's secretary. At one time it had
pressed the dispatches and private papers of Napoleon.

It was BrummelTs most prized collection, which, like
all collectors, he valued far beyond its intrinsic value; but
many of these objects had been given to him by that
"amiable woman' 3 , the Duchess of York. And in this room
he had also installed the easy-chair the Duchess of York
had presented to him, all embroidered by her hand.

Soon after being installed in the rooms he engaged a valet,
called Frangois Selegue, commissioned a 'jswfSittto execute
for him a snuff-box of black shell and gold ; and^seated in
his fouteml, surrounded by his Buhl, paintings, prints,
knick-knacks and the Sevres portraits of La Valliere and the
other beauties of the Court of France, Brummell was now
ready to hold his levee once again, and brave the future.

From this point BrummelPs life became like a king's
exile, with all the grandeur and all the misery of a king in
exile. His life much^.tqp^Jong-^-took on a hundred
shades: iFbecame pathetic, comic and tragic. But it was
a unique life: the immortality of Brummell was truly
achieved in those years of long and painful exile. England
might have utterly forgotten him; instead, it remembered
him forever. And so did the whole world*

156

II

It must be said that Fortune did not forsake Bmmmell :
like a true king in exile, he was supported by his friends.
His friends from London placed at his disposal sums of
money, often considerable : and it was more than gener-
osity, it was the support of a cause. Shortly after his
arrival, a clerk from M. de Vos, a Calais banker, called
one morning on Bmmmell to place a large sum in his
hands the equivalent of 1,000 which had been paid
into their bank the day before ; the donor wished to remain
anonymous.

The old King's son-in-law, the Duke of Gloucester,
during one of his frequent visits to Paris, stopped at Calais
and called at Le Pauvre Diable "to make sure that the Beau
in his solitude lacked no comfort". But in the circle of
those who provided not only to his wants but to his
luxuries (and theyjtoew Jiiat only the luxuries were his
real wants!) no, ozxe extended relief and help to the ex-
^^d^ted ^Tuimnt]i. vdik more warmth of feeling or
delicacy of manner than the Duchess of York. The "votre
ires ajfectionee amie et servante" of her witty letters sent now
frequent tokens of her friendship : a purse, a card-case, a
note-keeper, the work of her own fair hands; and when
opened, these little marks of Her Royal Highness's regard
were never found empty, and a rustling of banknotes was
always heard within their folds. The kindness of this
Royal Lady was the more meritorious on account of her
high rank, and it proved that women are ever the most
lasting in their attachment of love and friendship.

157

The friends, too, headed and urged by the faithful Lord
Alvanley, immediately spoke at White's of clubbing to-
gether to provide Brummell with an annuity. The idea
was, for the moment, left in abeyance; but many came
forward: John Chamberlayne, who had never been
intimate with Brummell, went so far as to announce that
he would personally provide Brummell with a yearly
allowance, and so began it. The Marquis of Lome, one
of the old intimate circle, although compelled to run to
Paris for his own safety, stopped in Calais and left what
money he could. And many others, in the course of time,
sent or came to give substantial proofs of their regard : the
Duke of Rutland (magnanimously forgiving the financial
escapade of the Beau with his two sons) ; the Dukes of
Richmond, Beaufort and Bedford; Lords Sefton, Jersey,
Willoughby, Craven, Ward, Stuart de Rothesay. Even
the Duke of Wellington who was occasionally crossing
the Channel, the gossips said, to make sure that the ghost
of Napoleon was not walking about Waterloo visited
Brummell,' and courteously left his token of esteem and
sympathy.

That Brummell, even after his departure from London,
still retained friends stands to prove the permanency of
his influence. Society is only too prompt to discard and
forget those who have played their brief part upon the
fashionable stage. Brummell in exile was jtil^ king: it
was impossible to discard a man who displayed such con-
fidence in the kindness of his friends, and accepted their
help only on condition that any attempt to relieve his
anxieties should be made with due formality. There was
a delightful sense of humour in his receiving and enter-
taining his friends in his old superb style, only the recep-
tion was always at the visitor's expense.

Also the choice of Calais had been a most digloniatic

158 """

one: hardly had Louis XVIII returned to his throne than
English Society crossed the Channel to re-visit Paris, and
Calais became a meeting-place between London and
Paris; and in the eyes of society people the little town of
Calais was now dignified by the presence of George Brum-
mell. It became normal to make a pilgrimage to the ci-
devant King of Fashion. And Brummell, born for Society
and living solely for it, pursued his life in Calais with the
same idle and haughty pose.

Happily for him, he had not learnt the difference be-
tween the necessities and the luxuries of life. Although he
had written to Tom Raikes that he was leaving his bed
at seven, actually he rose about nine o'clock. He break-
fasted, cafe-au-lait complet in his brocaded dressing-
gown, and sat reading The Morning Chronicle and some
new books until noon. Soon after his arrival in Calais he
commenced to learn French, and took as teacher an old
abbe "who" he wrote to Tom Raikes "instructs me in
the French dialect at three francs an hour". Scrope Davies,
who liked to make fun of his friends, used to say that the
Beau, in his French studies, had been "stopped, like
Napoleon in Russia, by the Elements"; but in fact,
Brummell came to speak and write French quite well and
not without elegance.

Precisely at twelve so precisely that Leveux's assis-
tants kept their dinner time by it "Ak, voilti M. Brummell,
c*est midi" Brummell might be een in his flowing
dressing-gown and velvet cap crossing the passage to his
bedroom. His toilet then commenced, and it occupied
nearly two hoursrKFsHaved with the* smallest of razors,
an3 after shavirig'he plucked away all superfluous hairs
with a pair of tweezers, using a dentist's magnifying glass;
he washed profusely, and then dressed with the old
meticulous care. Thus properly attired, he held his levee

159

and sat en Prince chatting with the friends who dropped in.
It was at one of those levees that one day an acquaintance
burst out in an alarmed voice: "Brummell, have you

heard the news? S , the banker, ran off last night! 55

"Well, what of that?" "Why, I have lost a thousand
francs." "Then, my dear fellow, in future take hint from
me, and always keep your account overdrawn !"

At four o'clock punctually he stepped into the Rue
Royale, blue coat, buff waistcoat and marvellous cravat,
and proceeded for a walk on the ramparts. It was a walk
pour se montrer^ not certainly for exercise ; a walk such as he
would have taken down St. James's Street, on his way to
the "bow-window" at White's. The "long walk", as
Brummell termed it, was going in at one gate and out at
the other, a distance of two hundred yards ; and he would
adjust his pace to that of his dog Vick, a bitch terrier,
that was rather fat, and even during this short promenade
Brummell was obliged to turn round and wait for Vick
at least a dozen times. But Brummell loved this dog, and
once when Vick was very ill, he sent for two of his friends
who were competent in dogs' illnesses, and they found Vick
laid up upon her master's bed, and Brummell in great
distress. The two "Vets 53 expressed the opinion that the
dog ought to be bled. "Bled !" said the master in terror, "I
leave the room, call me when the operation is over." Some
years later Vick died of obesity and old age; Brummell
buried her in Dessein's garden, and for several days put
on mourning and talked of erecting a monument to her
memory. His salon was closed to visitors for three days,
and for several weeks he did not allow anyone to speak
of her death. He consoled HmselfjA^h^a^trio of poodles,
the most famousToF i^^rthre?vi^ named Atout^ an dhad
been trained by a soldier of Calais garrison, and he was
turned out for his walk on the ramparts as neat as Bruin-

160

1

mell. The greatest accomplishment of Atout was to take
a hot muffin from the plate before the fire, and run round
the room offering it to the company.

At five o'clock the Beau and his dogs ascended to
his rooms and dressed for dinner. Dinner was at six and
was sent in by Dessein's, but served by Brummeirs per-
sonal valet. With the meal, when alone, he drank a
bottle of Dorchester ale, of which he had a barrel in the
house: the humbler drink showed that he had "fallen
from his high estate* ' ; but Dorchester ale was at least malt
liquor; and this potent stuff was followed by a glass of
brandy, which he always took during dinner; and the
rear was brought up by a bottle of Bordeaux. He was
never drunk, although he had been well accustomed to
deep potations of wine, to say nothing of "Roman
punch", into the mysteries of which he had initiated the
Prince Regent. Only once was he seen inebriated. It was
at Calais, and indeed he was so disgusted with himself
that he performed a voluntary penance of solitary con-
finement for eight days. Dinner at six was kept as a ritual,
in memory of London; once, when Lord Westmorland,
passing through Calais, called on him and said he would
be happy if he would dine with him at three o'clock,
Brummell answered: "Your lordship is very kind, but I
really could not feed at that early hour!"

At seven o'clock, or half-past, he went to the theatre,
where he had a small box; or in the long summer
evenings he retired to the garden of his house, in the
honeysuckle-covered berceau, and there he read or noted
down the recollections of his past and more resplendent
days.

The friends that came to visit him found him as amus-
ing as ever. Even his valet was a marvel, bien poudrl, bien
cer&nonieux et bien mis. To the callers the valet would say

161

that "Monsieur was shaving, but would receive during
his second toilet".

From his friends Brummell learnt of the gradual decline
of Watier's Club: the play had become so high that most
of its members were ruined by it. Some had committed
suicide, others had followed the example of the Beau and
gone into exile. Berkeley Craven (a school-fellow at
Eton!) had retired to St. Homer; Scrope Davies had gone
to Paris: "Poor Davies, so witty, to reduce himself to one
room in Paris! And they tell me that no one is ever
allowed to penetrate in that room, but each day poor
Scrope issues from it immaculate, and receives his friends
in the gardens of the Tuileries."

One day when a friend glanced round the exquisite room
with its expensive furniture and knick-knacks, Brummell
told him: "My friend, it is a truly aristocratic feeling, the
gift of living happily on credit! One must, of course, be
endowed with the gift of having no idea of the value of
money." And to Harriette Wilson who inquired how he
managed to amuse himself in Calais, the answer was: "I
have never been in any place in my life where I could not
amuse myself. "

His drawing-room, his mode of life, his reputation, in-
deed his fame were the topic of all society in Calais and
the neighbourhood. People sought his company; the
gentlemen attended his levees, the wealthy bourgeois were
glad to have him at their dinner-tables. But Brummell
was most careful in the choice of his fidends^ and loftily
severe with those who manifested a disposition to intrude
upon him without due introduction. One day, when walk-
ing on the ramparts arm-in-arm with Lord Sefton, they
met an extremely vulgar looking Englishman, who bowed
to Brummell in a familiar way. "Sefton/ 3 said Brummell,
"what can that fellow mean by bowing to you ?" "To me !

162

He is bowing to you, I suppose, for I know no one in
Calais. 55 Soon after, the stranger passed them again and
patting BrummelTs arm confidentially, said in a most
cordial tone: "Don't forget, Brumm, don't forget, goose
at four!" Brummell stared after the fellow, and laughed
aloud: "My dear Sefton, it is always the vulgar friend
who is most profuse at the wrong moment!"

His letters to his friends were very chatty, the letters
that a man who has retired to his country-seat in a fit of
misanthropy would write to his friends in town :

"Dear Hughes,

"Rob Roy arrived here in a storm more bleak than those
which usually dwell upon his native hills; I had received
and read him before, but that does not in the least diminish
my obligation to your good-natured memory a thousand
thanks to you for sending him.

"I rejoice in the re-establishment of Devonshire's legiti-
macy. I had indeed been looking out for an economical
two-pair of stairs retreat for him in the adjacent Basse-
Ville; but I am more pleased with his resurrection than,
I am sure, I should have been in having him for a neigh-
bour.

"Have you read Horace Walpole's letters to Mr. Mon-
tagu? If not, I would recommend you to get them. They
are much the most pleasant light reading I have had for
an ag. The climate of Venice I fear has sadly impaired
my friend Byron's imagination, for I never waded through
such a galimatias as Beppo he had better confine himself
to misanthropic lamentation, for he is lost the moment
he attempts to cultivate "Broad Grins" like George
Coleman.

Ever truly yours,

G.B."
163

Once Alvanley arrived from London, always good
natured and affectionate but absent-minded; and in-
formed Brammell that the Duchess of York had given
him a letter but that he had accidentally burnt it. Brum-
mell was so desolate that he could not resist writing to her
and beg for another version of it.

"You have lost nothing/ 5 the Duchess replied, "in that
letter which was destined for you, and which Lord Alvan-
ley consigned to the flames; it contained only my thanks
for the charming gifts which you had the goodness to
send me (with which I adorned myself on the evening of
my little birthday party), and my regrets that you were
no longer one of us. These regrets are renewed daily, and
especially the reasons which are the cause of them. Believe
that nobody feels the loss of your society more than I do.
I shall never forget the agreeable moments that I have
owed to it, and the only thing that would compensate me
would be the certitude of your happiness, for which I send
the most sincere wishes, as for that which can contribute
most to it"

164

Ill

When the days were uneventful, and the English boat
did not unload some friends it was always a red-
letter day in the week that on which the English packet
came in Brummell beguiled the time by jotting down on
paper his memories. Indeed, towards the end of 1818
there was much talk in London about the Memoirs that
George Brummell was busy writing in Calais. What a
book they might have been! Charles Standish told Lady
Granville that he had actually seen at Belvoir a letter
from Brummell to the Duke of Rutland announcing the
imminent publication of his autobiography. Others re-
ported that Brummell had actually turned the leaves of
the manuscript in front of them, saying: "Here is a chap-
ter on Carlton House, here is one on Mrs. Fitzherbert and
the Regent." Also Croker, the diarist, said he had heard
something about it, that Brummell was going to publish
an English Journal at Calais, which will alarm some great
folk; and it was said that the French Police had been asked
to have a look at it. The publisher, John Murray, had
offered Brummell 5,000 for the Memoirs, and people
even said that the Regent had sent Brummell 6,000 to
suppress them. John Murray had even thought of going
over to Calais to negotiate for the book. What a pity the
publisher of Lord Byron and Sir Walter Scott did not
make that journey to Calais what a loss to posterity!
Another offer came to Brummell from yet another pub-
lisher, and it came at a moment when he was in dire
need of money ; and yet Brummell resisted the temptation.

165

Leleux, his landlord, urged him to accept the offer; but
his tenant told him: "I promised the Duchess of York that
I would never publish any notes of mine during the life-
time of the Regent or his brothers, and I am under so
many obligations to her, and have such a deep respect
for her generous and amiable conduct to me in our early
friendship and since, that I would rather go to gaol than
forfeit my word. The Duchess of York is the only link that
binds me to the life that was." Some other writing he did,
little occasional verses addressed to ladies of Calais; and
he put hand to a book on a subject on which he was cer-
tainly the supreme authority: "Male costume Grecian,
Roman and British Costume from the Roman Invasion
to 1822." But the book was never finished. He found, in
that first period of his life in Calais, much enjoyment in
writing letters and he was in constant communication
with the Duchess of York, Lord Alvanley, John Chamber-
layne, Lieut.-Col. Hughes who was now at St. Homer. To
the ladies of Calais he amused himself by writing long
letters interspersed with French words and expressions.

But his greatest occupation was the making of a screen
for the Duchess of York. It was a big screen of six panels
about five and a half feet high and twenty-four inches
wide, decorated with prints. Such screens were very
fashionable at the time and Byron also enjoyed making
one, pasting on it cuttings of sporting prints. Brummell,
who had shown a propensity for collecting cuttings, had
filled his big blue velvet album with the poems given to
him by his friends, or composed by himself. He now gave
himself to the making of this screen with much gusto. It
was to be an artistic achievement: a chronicle of the times
in pictures, allegorical as well as actual, and above all, it
was to be a testimonial to a friendship which no amount
of patient work with scissors and paste could ever repay.

166

Captain Jesse, who saw the screen, was so impressed by
it that he left us this description :

"The most prominent features of it are the quadrupeds,
which form the centre of the upper part of each leaf; these
prints are on a scale much larger than the generality of
the other drawings. In the first compartment is an ele-
phant, the second bears a hyena, the third a tiger, the
fourth a camel, and the fifth a bear. The sixth has no
animal upon it. Many of the drawings which cover the
remaining surface of the screen are coloured: the engrav-
ings are in line, mezzotint, or lithograph, with sketches in
chalk, pastel, or pencil; in fact, a specimen of every pos-
sible variety of the limner's or engraver's art, if oils be
excepted, is to be found upon it. It will therefore be easily
imagined, that the general effect produced by such a
multitude of objects, of every colour and form, is on the
first coup fodl very confused : but, on a closer inspection,
the attention that has been devoted to arrangements of
almost every part becomes easily discernible: each little
pictorial episode, and there are hundreds, is encircled by
wreaths and garlands of flowers of every description; the
rose predominating, much to the credit of the paster's
taste; fruit, and emblems in character with the subject to
be illustrated, are also mingled with the flowers; to give
an exact description of this glorious piece of fiddle-faddle,
the trifling industry of a thoroughly idle man, would be
both useless and tedious.

"On the first leaf, as I have before remarked, there is
an elephant, under the neck of which is a full-faced por-
trait of Napoleon, who, in this case, is the subject to be
illustrated. By introducing this animal the Beau intended
to express the Emperor's power; but on the throat of the
modern king-maker is a butterfly, intended to represent
another of his attributes, and to neutralize his greatness.

167

The portrait is encircled by the neck, shoulder, and trunk
of this Ghouni; and the edges of the two drawings, which
would otherwise have been discoverable, are concealed by
other attributes, as well as by fruit and flowers, cut out
and arranged with infinite pains. This plan of concealing
the edges was pursued throughout with as much nicety
as a sempstress would bestow on the hem of a chemise
fhomme. Amongst these emblems, and immediately above
the Emperor's head, is a mortar elevated for firing; from
the mouth of it proceeds a sword, round which a serpent
has entwined itself: a scythe and a flag, with the Russian
eagle on it, are crossed above the sword, and the trophy
is completed by laurel branches over the emblem of Time.
The trumpet of Fame, and a port-fire nearly burnt out,
are above the Muscovite colours. The reader can scarcely
fail to see the application of these illustrations to Napo-
leon's history.

"Below the elephant, and in the centre of the same leaf,
are grouped four coloured portraits; the one on the left

hand looking outwards is General U n, next to him

are the late Marquis of Hertford and Lord Sefton, ap-
parently in conversation; and the fourth (to me an
inconnu) is on their right, and looking towards them. The
General, who has a neckcloth large enough for three, and
a rounded shirt collar on the same scale, is smelling a
sprig of jessamine; a Gupid lolls on his shoulder, as much
at ease as the reading Magdalen at Dresden, and is kill-
ing, not the general, but Time, with a book, probably
Ovid's Art of Love. On the body of the gallant officer, who
is thus indulging poor Cupid with a ride a pig-a-back, is
pasted an unnatural and classical-looking landscape,
representing a forest in the distance, with a rocky fore-
ground; but the principal subject is a young lady, who,
having thrown aside her harp, is caressing the antlers of

168

a wounded stag. Back to back with the General is the
late Lord Sefton, the defect in whose figure Brummell
concealed with a flower, probably with the intention of
showing that he considered his physical infirmities were
entirely overbalanced by his amiable disposition. This he
might well do, for he was one of his greatest benefactors.
Between his lordship and the Marquis is the head of a
very lovely woman, ornamented, without the slightest
necessity, by a plume of ostrich feathers. The two peers
are so placed that it is difficult to say out of whose pocket
the divinity is emerging; most likely that of the latter.
Lord Sefton is in Hessians, and wears a very peculiar hat.
My Lord of Hertford, whose whiskers look as if they were
made of leopard's skin, is dressed in a greatcoat, and car-
ries a large cane between a pair of yellow tan gloves, his
left hand being inserted like Lord Sefton's right, in his
pocket behind. His emblems are also highly appropriate
and numerous. First, and in the front, are two Cupids in
an azure cloud, one bearing the hymeneal torch, and the
other a dove, which is looking him amorously in the face.
Cupids, in every variety of position that the coryphee of
the Grand Opera could devise, float around his lordship.
They may be literally said to swarm; and judging by
their looks, each of them seems to be laden with the sweets
of a different hive, more luscious than those of Narbonne
or Hymettus. One, much larger and more saucy-looking
than the rest, is standing on his lordship's shoulder, and
rests, with folded arms, and the domesticated air of a
favourite spaniel, upon his hat. To the right is a charming
print, by Bartolozzi or Cipriani, of a young girl attended
by the everlasting Cupids; above her is a little archer
shooting at doves in a palm tree, and around are Satyrs
carrying Bacchantes and shepherdesses in their arms.
Farther on is a gentleman who sports a pair of yellow

169

knee-breeches, and is presenting a nest of doves to a lady
in a scarlet-bodied dress. All these subjects appear to have
been applique with great judgment in honour of the most
noble the Marquis of Hertford. The inconnu, the last of
the quartette, is the counterpart of a piping bullfinch, and
by the emblems that surround him may perhaps have
been celebrated Tanatico per la musica 3 .

"The hyena in the second compartment is represented
as being tamed by the Arts, Sciences, and Religion, sym-
bols of which, mingled with the Muses and the Graces,
are seen on every side. In the centre of this leaf is a coloured
print, taken from a scene in the Fille mal gardte. There are
also various drawings representing historical, mythologi-
cal and rural subjects. Amongst the most striking are
Telemachus relating his adventures to Calypso, Phaeton
driving his car, Time his chariot; a French dragoon at
bivouac preparing a fowl for the camp-kettle; a religieuse
at her devotions; a minuet at a French fair; a gentleman
and a shepherdess, whose dog has seized the skirt of her
dress, and with an anxious look is endeavouring to detach
her from her admirer.

"The tiger on the third leaf is surrounded by Cupids,
cows, goats, etc., all, with the exception of the first, harm-
less and peaceful animals. On each side of the royal brute
is a coloured print, representing the juvenile amusements
of the Dauphin and the Duchess of d ? Angouleme. In the
one to the right they are playing at soldiers : she is march-
ing in front of her brother and beating a drum, thus indi-
cating the resolute spirit which she afterwards showed:
her dog is campering before her; and her companion,
who is dressed in the national colours, is carrying a flag,
on which are inscribed the words Union, Force. She has
evidently tempted him away from his ninepins to follow
her, and these toys are seen behind him scattered on the

170

ground. In the other print they are playing at battledore
and shuttlecock, looking very happy and very merry. The
ferocious tiger was well chosen to illustrate the period and
the subject to which this part of the screen is devoted; for
in this beast of prey are plainly personified the cruelties of
the Revolution, and, in die domestic animals, the helpless-
ness of those who suffered by its horrible excesses. The
children's ignorance of the nature of the proceedings of
which their flag and their tricoloured sashes were the
emblems, and their utter unconsciousness of the anxiety
and danger which at that very time surrounded them,
and all belonging to them, as expressed by their game of
battledore and shuttlecock, is truly characteristic of their
years. Such happily is generally the case with children. In
the midst of the dreadful hurricane in which the crew of
the Bridgewater so nearly perished, and when not a ray of
hope existed for the safety of a soul on board, where were
the little children of one of the passengers, and what were
they doing? Were they frightened at the unusual trem-
bling of the ship, as she staggered under the concussions
of each succeeding wave, or sobbing in their mother's
arms ? No ; at that awful moment they were floating their
little paper boats in the water that half-filled the cabins.
Below these prints are many other Cupids also, but by no
means so comfortable as the one on Lord Hertford's
shoulder. One poor boy is standing, in a cold wretched
night, at the door of a house; his torch is thrown down in
the snow, and his dripping pinions are scarcely covered by
a scanty red mantle. He seems to be a good illustration of
the old song, c ln the Dead of the Night', and is apparently
singing the insinuating line: 'I've lost my way, ma'am; do
pray let me in.' Near this mischief-maker is another smok-
ing a pipe.

"Below the camel, in the fourth compartment, is a man

171

in Cossack trousers ; a monkey is sitting on his back, gently
exciting his own epidermis ; a pensive Cupid is clinging to
the coat of the incognito. Near him is a gentleman with
a lady in his arms; a Cupid is looking up at them, and
pointing to a volume of sermons which he holds in his
hand; a butterfly has alighted on the cavalier's coat, and
not far off is a group of Cupids and Satyrs rushing in
among bathing Nymphs. There is also a female barber.

"The bear in the fifth compartment is stimulating his
appetite with a young crocodile; around him are children
at play, shepherds, the Graces, Venus, and numerous
insects and shells. Lower down are portraits of Charles
Fox, Necker, Sheridan, the Regent Philip of Orleans, and
John Kemble. Fox has a butterfly near him; Nelson,
Greenwich Hospital; Sheridan, a Cupid carousing on
some straw; and Kemble, a ladybird on his waistcoat.
Round the arm of a man in Hessians is a green monkey
holding a mask, and another monkey is between his legs.
There are also likenesses of Lucien Bonaparte, the Prin-
cess Charlotte, and Duke of Cambridge when a young
man; and a little piece representing an old cure de village
trying, but in vain, to thread the needle of one of his
pretty parishioners.

"Byron and Napoleon, placed opposite to each other,
occupy the upper centre of the last and sixth leaf: the
former is surrounded with flowers, but has a wasp on his
throat. This to Ins friend was base ingratitude on the part
of Brummell, for the noble lord spoke of, and would have
pasted him, with more charitable feeling. Kean, as
Richard, is the last print I shall notice. He is below the
Emperor, and his neck is ornamented with two hymeneal
torches laid together crosswise by a tru-lovers' knot.

"It will be seen by this imperfect description that, to
understand fully the wit in the arrangement of all the

172

groups, it is necessary that the observer should be familiar
with the gossip of the day; and there is little doubt that
any of BrummelPs contemporaries would, with the greatest
ease, recapitulate the histories attached to each, and ex-
plain to his juniors circumstances in the arrangement that
to them are merely unmeaning riddles."

But the Duchess of York died on August 6th 1820, aged
only fifty-four; and the screen remained as a sad memory
folded in a corner of the drawing-room in the Rue Royale,
a fertile subject of conversation for BrammelTs privileged
visitors, and to them only was it ever shown. From the
time of the death of the Duchess of York, Alvanley noticed
that Brummell tended to succumb to solitude and fits of
melancholy.

173

IV

Time went slowly by. A faint touch of decay seemed to
set on BrummelL A trained eye could notice the dif-
ference. Lord William Pitt Lennox, passing through
Calais, invited him to dinner at Dessein's: to his great
surprise, he noticed that BrummelTs well-fitting clothes
were a little c 'seedy' ', his boots were not so brilliant as
they used to be when he lounged up Bond Street; his hat,
though carefully brushed, showed symptoms of decay,
and the only remnants of dandyism left were the snow-
white linen and an exceptional tie.

In Calais, Brummell had found a promising young
tailor, and had taught him the cut of Saville Row. The
cravats came from London, frequent gifts from Tom
Raikes; but now and then the parcels proved disappoint-
ing. Once Brummell had to write to Raikes: C T am per-
suaded you had no hand in the mutilation of the muslin
that you sent to me. No, I said, he never in cold blood
could have been guilty of this outrage. The fault then
rests with that vandal Chapman, who, in the attempt to
exculpate himself, had added a lie to the previous offence,
for according to all the rules of geometry, two triangles
will form a square to the end of the world, and of equal
triangular proportions are the kerchiefs in question. The
intention you profess of sending me some square pieces
assures me you are in good humour/ 5

J^ Mjir^^ at Windsor

and the Prince Regent . bec2tm,King ; Would he, now that
he was King, relent towards his old friend? Brummell
knew the new King too well to entertain hopes that he

174

would stretch out a hand to help the man who had been
his favourite friend and was now in weary exile. He wrote
to Tom Raikes :

"He is at length King. Will his past resentments still
attach themselves to his crown? An indulgent amnesty of
former peccadilloes should be the primary grace influenc-
ing newly throned sovereignty; at least towards those who
were once distinguished by his more intimate protection.
From my experience, however, of the person in question,
I must doubt any favourable relaxation of those stubborn
prejudices which have, during so many years, operated to
the total exclusion of one of his eleves from the royal notice ;
that unfortunate I need not particularize.

"You ask me how I am going on at Calais. Miserably! I
am exposed every hour to all the turmoil and jeopardy that
attended my latter days in England. I bear up as well as I
can; and when the mercy and patience of my claimants
are exhausted, I shall submit without resistance to bread
and water and straw. I cannot decamp a second time. 35

Yet, he hoped against hope. He did not want to go back
to London; that was out of the question, for he thought it
would be impossible to recapture his former glory, and
Brummell could not fit as a mere onlooker in London life.
He was quite reconciled to remain away from England,
to play to the end the part of the exile; but George IV,
now that the power was his, could show him indulgence
and gratify him with some sinecure that would relieve
him of worry and adorn him, at the same time, with some
kind of official position. So were his friends in England
hoping for him. Lord Alvanley wrote indeed to Earl
Bathurst, who had for eight years been Secretary for War
and the Colonies in the Ministry of Lord Liverpool:

"I am aware that I have little right to address you on
the following subject, but I trust you will forgive my doing

so on the score of old family friendship. Poor Brummell
has now been four years in Calais. He has lived upon what
those who were intimate with him have been able to do
for him. So precarious an existence, however, is hardly
worth having. I have been told that you have expressed
yourself kindly with regard to him. Perhaps you might
be able to give him some small situation abroad, in order
to relieve him from the position in which he now is. I say
nothing about the circumstances that occurred previous
to his departure from England. I cannot excuse them in
any way. They, however, are no longer fresh in the
memory of those who were not sufferers, and I know that
the greatest sufferer is most desirous that something
should be done for him. The Duke of York, who has been
very kind to him, would gladly assist any effort in his fav-
our. I will not trouble you more on the subject. If you can
do anything for him, I arn certain you will. If not, I am cer-
tain your reasons will be better than any I could give. 55

The following year Brummell changed his rooms. He
did not wish to leave the comfortable house of Le Paume
Diable, but arranged with M. Leleux for other rooms to
the left of the old ones; a dining-room on the street floor,
a drawing-room on the floor above, and a handsome bed-
room to the rear, all accessible by a private entry and
staircase. And, as usual, the first thing Brummell did was
to redecorate. He laid a floor of black-and-white marble
inside the private front door, something quite grandiose,
that M. Leleux used to show, years afterwards, to inquirers
about his former tenant; then he adorned the dining-
room with a wallpaper of rich crimson. It was an expense,
perhaps in excess of the sums he was receiving from his
friends in England, but he liked the rooms in the Rue
Royale, and, should his hope of an official job materialize,
the apartment would be worthy of the situation.

V

In September of that year, 1821, George IV came to
Calais on his way to visit his subjects in Hanover (the
Hanoverian King of England ceased to be titular King of
Hanover after the death of William IV in 1837).

When the King of England landed, the pier was
crowded with curious spectators. As he stepped ashore
from his barge, his hat fell from his hand; an urchin
picked it up and rushing forward restored it to His
Majesty : c c Big Ben 3 ' put his hand in his pocket and handed
the boy a handful of golden sovereigns. Louis XVIII had
deputed the Due d'Angouleme to greet George IV on his
arrival on French soil, and together they went in a car-
riage to Dessein's Hotel where King George would be
entertained.

On that morning, M. Leleux was standing at his shop-
door, from where he could enjoy a good view of the royal
procession on its way to the hotel, and he saw Brummell,
who had gone out for his usual walk, trying to make his
way across the street to the house. But the crowd was
great, and he was obliged to remain on the opposite side.
When the carriage approached, all hats were taken off,
and when it was close to Le Pauvre Diable's door M. Leleux
heard the King say in a loud voice to his confidential
secretary, Sir Benjamin Bloomfield: "Good God, Brum-
mell!" The carriage went on its way, and Brummell, pale
as death, entered the house by his private door and went
straight up to his rooms.

In the evening there was an official dinner at Dessein's,

177

and Brummell lent for the occasion his valet, Selegne, who
was also a chef, and who attended to make the punch.
Indeed, Brummell sent by the valet a special bottle of
Maraschino to which he remembered the King was ex-
tremely partial. It had been noticed, during the afternoon,
that the King was not in good humour. Was this occa-
sioned by the encounter of the morning? Was he worried
lest Brummell would make his appearance and ask for an
audience ? After the dinner the King requested the Mayor
of Calais to lend him a snuff-box; but the Mayor did not
take snuff and had no box to offer. The Chief of Police
immediately presented his. The King took a pinch, which
in all probability he purposely allowed to fall on the
floor, and the next morning sent the Police Chief a gold
box, for George IV loved to bestow small favours in a
grandiose way.

In the morning everyone of the King's suite, with the
exception of Sir Benjamin Bloomfield, called on Brum-
mell, and one and all endeavoured to persuade him to
request an interview with the King, now or when he
should return to England. Brummell had written his name
in the register at Dessein's, but he abstained from pre-
senting himself or writing to the King. A refusal to see
him, he said to all his friends, would be an indignity to
which he did not choose to be exposed.

Later Benjamin Bloomfield called, but was not sent by
the King. Sir Benjamin came on the errand of asking the
former Beau the courtesy of some snuff for the King, and
relating the occurrence of the previous night. Would Mr.
Brummell oblige him and the King?

Brummell gave Sir Benjamin a box of snuff, and that
night, at the theatre, when the box was proffered in due
time, an exclamation followed the first pinch: "Why, sir,
where did you get that snuff? There is only one person

I know who can mix snuff this way." "It is some of Mr.
BrummelTs, sir." Here the conversation closed.

Two days after his arrival, the King left Calais for
Cassel, and he was heard to remark to Sir Arthur Paget
as the carriage drove away: "I leave Calais and have not
seen Brummell."

This remark, which was heard by several persons who
were assembled in the yard of the hotel, was a cruel one,
for it implied that the King had, in some degree, expected
Brummell to make his appearance at the public levee
held at the Hotel. This remark, combined with the per-
suasions of his friends, somewhat diminished the fear he
felt of receiving a rebuff, and Brummell determined to
make some approach when the King returned to Calais,
although he did not intend calling without receiving some
intimation that such was the King's pleasure. The civic
authorities expected that on his way back to England the
King would visit the Town Hall, and Brummell thought
he might be able to meet the King on this occasion. On
the way back George IV was much pressed for time, and
hurried on board the royal yacht immediately after his
arrival. Whatever the case, Brummell and the King did
not meet, and George IV showed that he lacked the finest
virtue of kings, magnanimity; but, alas, he was the King!
The crown had long since fallen from Brummell's head.

One morning, in 1725, an English lady presented her-
self at the rooms in the Rue Royale and inquired si Mon-
sieur Brummell tiait visible. Frangois the valet, "just such a
valet as one would have given the Beau in the acme of his
glory, bien poudrj, bien ceremonieux et bien mis", answered
que Monsieur sefaisait la barbe. The lady made to go and left
her card: "Pardons" said the valet, "mais Monsieur recoil
en ce faisant la barbe. Monsieur est a sa seconds toilette,
actuettement" And took the card in.

It was Harriette Wilson, now married to RochforL The
former courtesan, now forty years of age, had retired to
Paris, setting herself up at No. 1 1 1 Rue du Faubourg
St. Honore, and, with the help of her publisher, John
Joseph Stockdale, was writing her reminiscences in many
volumes, finding it extremely profitable to extract good
sums of money from well-known people simply by asking
them for a contribution in return for her undertaking to
leave them out of her book. The sum usually asked was
200.

She was, this day, passing through Calais, and although
she did not feel any friendship for Brummell, felt inclined
to pay him a hasty visit, just as the horses were being put
to her carriage. She found Brummell en robe de chambre de
Florence, and thought at first glance that if one might judge
from his increased embonpoint and freshness, his disgrace
had not seriously affected him.

180

VI

Bat things were going far from rosily for BrummelL The
news that there had been no meeting at all between
George IV and Brummell during the King's journey pass-
ing through Calais, had made many heads shake in
London. The King had been most ungenerous, all ad-
mitted it; yet, it might have helped matters a good deal
if things had gone differently.

BrummelPs means of subsistence became very irregular.
Also, the Duke of York did not continue, at least in a
regular way, the allowance that the Duchess had most
kindly passed to Brummell until her death. It, required
ail BrummelPs charms to keep his creditors quiet. "When-
ever any one of my creditors calls upon me, the moment
he enters the room I commence an amusing conversation.
This has hitherto succeeded very well, but my stock-in-
trade is drying up !"

Yes, he could be very whimsical; he could answer the
beggar who was asking for a sou: "My poor fellow, I have
heard of such a coin, but never possessed one; here's a
franc for you/ 3 Another day, he met on the pier an old
London acquaintance, who had just come off the packet
from England: "I am so glad to see you, for we heard in
London that you were dead; the report was in general
circulation when I left." "Mere stock-jobbing, my dear
fellow, mere stock-jobbing!"

In July 1828 the Hon. George Dawson, c/o Mrs. Fitz-
herbert, Tilney Street, Port Lane, London, received the
following letter:

181

Calais^ July 20, 1828.

"My dear Dawson,

"Will you so far extend your usual kindness as to en-
deavour to be of instant service to me. It is not to yourself
particularly that I take the liberty to address myself, for
you must be very much changed, if you have any money
at command; but to three or four of those former friends
who you may think willing to stretch a point in my favour
at the moment. I am in a serious scrape from my utter
inability to provide for a rascally bill which had been long
due, and which, if not paid on or before the s6th of this
month, will expose me to the worst consequences the

amount is 73.

" Would you so essentially oblige me as to endeavour to
gather together a few amiable Samaritans who might so
kindly bear me and my actual difficulties in remembrance
as to advance 25 each to satisfy this urgent demand?
One hundred would relieve me and give me a few pounds
over to scramble with. It would make me happy for the

present.

' 'You are acquainted with the different things belonging
to me, in China, Japan, etc. Select what you please to the
amount of double the sum in question and it shall be
faithfully sent to you or to anyone else in payment. I
would sell myself if I could raise a shilling upon my worth-
less body and soul to be extricated from this predicament
which really frightens me out of my wits.

"I wrote to Alvanley some time since acquainting him
with my apprehensions about this bill, but I fear he is as
usual without the means of assisting me. I have written
to Worcester ten days since in the same sense as my
present request to you, but I should think he is absent
from Town, for I have received no answer from him, and
time presses sorely upon me.

182

"I am, as you may have heard, expecting employment
through the interference of the best of friends, the Duke
of Wellington, but before such expectations may be real-
ized I am sadly alarmed lest some overwhelming disaster
should fall upon me.

Ever sincerely yours,

GEORGE BRUMMELL."

Another letter came in August.

Calais, Aug. 2nd, 1828.
"My dear Dawson,

"You are a very good fellow for answering my letter at
all, but a most excellent one during a fit of the gout. What
business have you to be tormented with gout? It would
become me perhaps, for no one deserves it more for former
"hard going 33 and here I am with uninterrupted good
health and, I firmly believe, an unimpaired constitution.
It is all, indeed, that is left to me, but I ought to be
thankful.

"You, on the contrary, have always been rather of a
temperate life and have no right to the Mala Podagra to
disturb your days and nights. I would willingly sell or
lend my limbs to anyone afflicted like yourself by way of
exchange from other annoyances.

"Your kindness towards me gives me good spirits for
the moment and I thank you with all my heart. For a long
time past I have been unaccustomed to even friendly
acknowledgements. Alvanley has sent me 50 through
Drummonds. He does not like making further application
to others, for speaking is always more effective than writ-
ing, or I might, perhaps, be relieved from the demands
that press upon me. He is, however, the best judge of
the grounds of such disinclination and I thank him equally
as the steadiest friend I possess.

183

"There certainly is a vacancy in the Consular Depart-
ment at Petersburg!*, for though the present incumbent,
Sir Something Bailey, is gone back there, I know he has
tendered his resignation, and that Marshall, the Consul
here, has several times written soliciting that preferment.

"Can you find out quietly whether it is the intention to
place me here as Consul, or to send me elsewhere, of
course a vacancy occurring to facilitate the business.

Ever yrs,

G.B."

The chance of obtaining a consular post became his only
hope. From that moment he wrote to all his friends, urg-
ing them to endeavour to obtain for him this consulate
at Calais. All visitors to Calais became the messengers of
BrammelTs plight. Charles Greville, who was Clerk of the
Council and therefore in constant touch with the chiefs
of all the parties, had a talk in December with Welling-
ton and implored that "poor Brummell" be taken care of.
The Duke explained to Greville that he had already
attempted to do his utmost, but Lord Aberdeen had inter-
posed, and the King was adamant on the subject of
Brummell.

In the spring of 1829 Greville determined to visit the
Beau. Poor Brummell was unaware that he was receiving
a saviour angel, and kept Greville in his place, though ex-
panding upon his hardships, but dwelling upon his in-
destructible hopes for the morrow. Greville entered these
notes in his diary: "At Calais (March 6) I had a long
conversation with Brummell about his consulship, and
was moved by his account of his own distress to write to
the Duke of Wellington and ask him to do what he could
for him. I found him in his old lodging, dressing. Some
pretty pieces of old furniture in the room, an entire toilet

184

of silver, and a large green macaw perched on the back of
a tattered silk chair with faded gilding; full of gaiety,
impudence and misery. The parrot was called Hob-
house. "Doesn't he look exactly like Hobhouse?"

Only a few weeks previously that amusing and vera-
cious traveller and profound judge of English society.
Prince Pucker Muskan, who was wandering about
Europe, found himself at Calais, and went to pay a visit
to Brummell.

"Every bird of passage from the fashionable world
dutifully pays the former patriarch the tribute of a visit,
or of an invitation to dinner," he wrote. "This I did also,
though under my assumed name. Unfortunately, in the
matter of dinner I had been forestalled by another
stranger; and I cannot therefore judge how a coat really
ought to look; or whether his long residence in Calais,
added to increasing years, have rendered the dress of the
former King of Fashion less classical, for I found him at
his second toilette, in a flowered chintz dressing-gown,
velvet night-cap with gold tassel, and Turkish slippers,
shaving, and rubbing the remains of his teeth with his
favourite red root. The furniture of his rooms was elegant
enough, part of it might even be called rich, though faded ;
and I cannot deny that the whole man seemed to me to
correspond with it. Though depressed by his present situ-
ation, he exhihit^ a considerable fund of good humbur
and good natu s H[is air was that of good society, simple
ai^jnatwaL .and ,J5?^ e 4 ty more urbanity than the
Dandies of the present-rac&are capably of. With a smile
he showed me his Paris peruke, which he extolled at the
cost of the English ones, and called himself, 'le ci-devant
jeune homme qui passe sa me entre Paris et Londres*.

"He appeared somewhat curious about me, asked me
questions concerning people and things in London, with-

185

out belying his good breeding by any kind of intrusive-
ness; and then took occasion to convince me that he was
perfectly well informed as to all that was passing in the
English world of fashion, as well as of politics. *Je suis au
courant de tout* he exclaimed, 'mats aquoi cela me sert-il? On
me laisse mourir defaim id. J'espere pourtant que mon ancien
ami le Due de Wellington enverra un beau jour le consul d'ici en
Chine^ et qtfensuite il me nommera a sa place. Alors je suis
sauve.* And surely the English nation ought in justice to
do something for the man who invented starched cravats !
How many did I see in London in the enjoyment of large
sinecures, who had done far less for their country! As
I took my leave, and was going down stairs, he opened
the door, and called after me: 'J'espere que vous trouvez
wire chemin; monSuisse rfestpas la^je crains.* ^HelasJ thought
I, 'point d' argent, point de Suisse* "

Alas, a few months later neither the German prince nor
Charles Greville would have found the fine pieces of old
furniture. To meet the most urgent creditors, a sale of
Buhl furniture was arranged, and it fetched a considerable
sum. His Sevres china had been bought some time before
by the London auctioneer, Mr. Grockford, Jnr., who
prompted by the Hon. George Dawson, went to Calais on
purpose. Crockford described the porcelain as "the finest
and purest ever imported into England". Indeed, at the
sale George IV gave two hundred guineas for a tea-set,
and a pair of vases was sold for three hundred pounds to
the Duke of Buccleuch. But neither the Sevres porcelain
nor the Buhl furniture was sufficient to satisfy half his
creditors' claims, for his banker's account alone stood at
this time at twelve thousand francs on the debit side.
Only in the consulate, Brummell's letters reminded his
friends, could he now see his salvation!

186

VII

In such conditions there was only one comfort left for a
man of spirits, and it was to fall in love. Brummell fell
in love with a girl in her 'teens, whose irresistible attrac-
tion was that she had lovely eyebrows. She was a devout
Roman Catholic, and for love of her, Brummell turned
Catholic without delay. (It happened that the English
residents of Calais were, at the moment, making a collec-
tion for building an Episcopal Chapel, and one of them
knocked at BrummelTs door: "I am sorry", the Beau
answered, "that you did not call last week, for it was only
yesterday that I became a Catholic but never mind,
put my name down for a hundred francs." And he had
not a penny for himself!)

He wrote a letter in Werther's style to the young lady,
who turned him down, offering him, the coquette, her
friendship, if not love :

"Yesterday morning I was subdued almost to insanity;
but your note in the evening restored me, and as if I had
been redeemed from earthly purgatory, placed me in
heaven. Thank you, thank you, dearest of beings ; how
can I requite all this benevolent open-heartedness, this
delightful proof and avowal of my not being indifferent to
you? By the dim light that was remaining I perceived
something white at your porte-cochere. It was evident that
I was recognized, and the figure advanced with your
billet. In an instant I seized the hand of your faithful and
intelligent messenger, compressing it forcibly. I should
have saluted her, if I had not fancied at the instant that

I heard someone coining up the street. We parted, and
I returned to my solitary chamber. There I lacerated the
letter with impatience, and then the light of love and joy,
and the refreshing breath of evening, stole through the
open window over my entranced senses. After that I
sought another stroll on the ramparts, and again returned
home contented with you, with myself, and with the
world. I have known few that could equal, none that
could excel you; yet they possessed not your charms of
countenance, your form, your heart, in my estimation.
Certainly they did not possess that unaffected and fervent
homage, which in my constant memory in my heart's
blood and in my devoted soul I bear to you. 53

The rumour went round Calais that the young lady
was "returning his passion 5 *, and the soulful British com-
patriots thought it fit to send a representative to ask
Brummell for an explanation, "lest he should abduct her".
They sent an elderly army officer from London. But the
fellow had not gone far with his harangue, when Brum-
mell looked him up and down: "Why, Vulcan, what a
precious old humbug you must be, to come and lecture
me on such a subject you who were for two years at
hide-and-seek to save yourself from being shot by Sir
T.S. for running off with one of his daughters! 55

On 26th June 1830 George IV died at Windsor look-
ing, in the words of the Duchess of Gloucester, "like a
feather bed' 5 . With the death of the King who had been
the Regent, and the former friend and patron of Brum-
mell, had disappeared the main obstacle to helping the
ci-devant-Beau. Alvanley had never given up his deter-
mination to rescue his friend in Calais, and scarcely Had
the ceremonies for the accession of William IV dieddawB*
than he besieged the Duke^Wd^^

188

Minister, to reopen the subject. The appeal was duly
made by Wellington; William IV barely remembered
Brummell and at that not enthusiastically; but he was
eager to oblige "the Duke", and on loth September 1830,
George Bryan Brummell was gazetted as British Consul
at Caen. The salary was 400 a year.

When the news reached the exile in the Rue Royale at
Calais, it was like being reborn. In broadcasting the news
he said to all that "he owed his appointment entirely to the
favourable consideration of the Commander-in-ChieF'. It
did not matter if, all going well, the remainder of his days
were to be devoted to the verification of passports, bills
of lading, invoices and mercantile papers indeed, Brum-
mell did not inquire what his duties were likely to be!

His "elevation" to the consulate was, however, the
source of fresh and urgent complications. For, if he was
anxious to shake off the dust of Calais, his creditors were
even more anxious to prevent his departure, at least not
whilst there remained those strong bonds of indebtedness
between him and them. There was the tailor, the uphol-
sterers, the draper, the decorator, the jewellers, the boot-
maker, the perruquier, even the valet and the washer-
woman; and there was the banker!

The two tailors Pion and Lamotte were merely tyros
in the art and were only entrusted with repairs, the prin-
cipal artist being Gaussin, who had been a prisoner in
England during the wars, and Brummell had taught him
the essentials in the art of cutting a coat. The chemist's
bills were mostly for huile antique and cold cream; and the
consumption of 1 76 francs of oils and cold creaiii was a
pretty example of the extravagance of BrummelTs habit
in his toilette but there it was. And all the bills had to be
paid, or at least settled to the suppliers' and creditors'
satisfaction.

189

Brummell found a wonderful saviour In the banker,
Monsieur Leveux. Even upon a hardened French banker
the charm of George Brummell had worked wonders.
Besides, in the course of years, M. Leveux had seen con-
siderable sums pass through his bank for Brummell, al-
ways sums, as one could say, descending from heaven,
such as might be the case for a king in exile. And Brum-
mell had frequently sent his visiting friends to M. Leveux
to cash their bills. The banker agreed, therefore, to liqui-
date BrummelPs creditors at Calais and enable him to
proceed to Caen and take up his official duties. A list of
the liabilities was drawn, as follows :

Francs
To his valet, Fran$ois Selegne, for

house expenses and etceteras . 6,162
Bill at Dessein's for dinners . . . . 3,488

Lefevre, hatter 54

Lamotte and Pion, tailors . . . . 373

Baudron and Samson, chemists . . 1 76

Lafond Bressell, Bonvarlet, Lemoine,

upholsterers . . . . . . 75

Parque Waillier, draper . . . . 309

Ducastel, decorator of ceilings . . 24

Desjardins and Boissard, jewellers * . 35

Fasquel, bootmaker . . . . 150

Piedfort, perruquier . . . . . . 8

Washerwoman . . . . . . 100

Fille de chambre . . . . . . 50

Isaac Pecquet, banker . . . . 500

11,504

M. Leveux was willing to advance twelve thousand
francs and to remove all impediments to the departure.

190

Brummell, on the other hand, to guarantee M. Leveux
repayment of this sum which was in addition to the twelve
thousand already overdrawn, made over to M. Leveux,
by letter of assignment to Mr. Hertslett, of the Foreign
Office, three hundred and twenty pounds per annum,
being all but eighty of his salary as Consul. It was very
hazardous to set upon an official career with but the pros-
pects of 80 a year; but Brummell did not feel any fear
for the future; and towards the end of September 1830,
he left the city of Calais where he had vegetated for four-
teen years. He was in the best of spirits. Through the
friendship of his friend the Consul at Calais, Mr. Marshall,
he was travelling to Paris with a King's messenger, and
of course free of expense. The silver-greyhound was a
very aristocratic Mercury, who duly appreciated the
honour of travelling with so celebrated a person as Beau
Brummell.

The- only, memory Brummell was regretful . jpf leaving
behind was the screen which he had worked with his own

"----- , ...--". ^T^*"*"**

hands fpr tfee lamented Duchess of York; the screen was
subsequently pawned by the valet, Frangois Selegne with
an upholsterer at Boulogne, who still had it when Captain
Jesse visited the town in search of BrummelPs memoirs.

VIII

It was grand to be in Paris, en route for his Consulship
at Caen. Perhaps it was better still not to have been to
Paris before -just to have lived there in the aura of his
former glory.

They received him like a man who had been a king
"King by grace of Grace". He stayed at the British
Embassy, guest of his old friend of better days. Lord
Stuart de Rothesay, who was Ambassador. He graced
the streets of Paris for a whole week, and was entertained
by the haute volee of the capital. Louis Philippe had ap-
pointed Talleyrand Ambassador to England, but the
Prince of Benevento had not yet left Paris, and the old
rogue, who had found it easy to serve both Napoleon and
Louis XVIII, entertained Brummell as a "confrere". At
seventy-four Talleyrand, with a solitary strand of white
hair sweeping down on one side, was more than ever
self-assured, cynical and humorous, and at the palace
of Talleyrand the cuisine was perfect, for he was wont to
say that he was kept alive by his cook rather than by his
doctor.

To meet Talleyrand was to meet everyone that mat-
tered in Paris. Thus Brummell met the Comte Louis
Mole, who was Foreign Secretary, and gave him letters
for the Prefect of Caen; and he met Comte Casimir de
Montrond, who was Talleyrand's shadow, his petted
pupil and confidant, gay, frivolous, gambling, of no
morals whatever. On being asked by a Princess of the
Imperial family why he was so attached to his great

192

protector Talleyrand, he replied with an air of naivete:
"How can one help loving him? He is so deliciously full
of vice!"

Montrond had no political ambition, honours and
places did not tempt him; but he was fond of money, not
to hoard it, only to lavish it. He made money by wisely
investing the State secrets that his friends whispered to
him. On one occasion, by a little secret operation he
realized a clear two million francs. "Now you are
rich,' 5 Talleyrand told him, "where shall you put this
two millions? 5 ' "Why, where should I? 35 said Montrond.
"In my secretaire, of course.' 5 Nor did the two millions
rest there a long time.

Yes, Brummell found Montrond an amusing fellow;
and he was delighted to be feted by the Princess de
Bagration. It was indeed like the old times, when he was
a favourite of the Duchess of Devonshire.

He also contrived to examine all the snuff-boxes in the
Palais Royal and the Rue de la Paix, but not one was
worthy of his selection, and^ before leaving Paris, he
order^doneatDabert's; a gold box, exquisitely enamelled,
for the ^rifling sum of two thousand five hundred francs
it was more than one year's salary, but what mattered ?

On the 5th of October Brummell arrived in Caen, in a
post-chaise hired in Paris for the occasion, with his valet,
Franois Selegne in the rumble, four horses and two pos-
tillions : amid the feu d* artifice of their whips he entered the
porte cochere of the Hotel de la Victoire, and to the cook
(whom he mistook for the landlord) he ordered "the best
room, the best dinner, and the best Laffitte 55 . Theft he
signed the register "His Britannic Majesty's Consul". He
felt, indeed, that now life was beginning afresh.

A week later, however, he removed to private lodgings :

193

the Hotel de la Victoire (that still stands near the market-
place) was no place fit for the Britannic Consul : and as
Brummell wrote in a letter to Marshall, the Consul in
Calais: "Stuart and several of my friends in Paris have
spoilt me for at least one year to come." The Hotel de la
Victoire was "one of the worst hotels, I am confident, in
Europe", nor could he endure to "gnaw bones upon un-
washed dowlas".

Good fortune led his steps to "an admirable lodging,
half a house, the property of a most cleanly, devout old
lady, excellently furnished, with a delightful garden, two
Angora cats and a parrot that I have already thrown
into apoplectic fits with sugar".

The house was in the Rue des Cannes; it was a digni-
fied building with a neat frontage of grey stone, three
stories high with the typical French mansardes for a fourth
above the roof, and the first floor above the rez-de-chaussee,
which was the piano nobile, adorned with small balconies
of wrought iron at each window, properly screened by
lace curtains. A most gentlemanly residence.

Moreover, the house belonged to Madame de Guernon
de Saint Ursain, nee Aimable Ange Vastin. As a child,
Mademoiselle Vastin, who was of Dutch birth, had been
adopted by two old maids called de Guernon Ranville
and had married their cousin M. de Guernon, a relative
of that Monsieur Ranville who was Minister of Charles X
and was incarcerated for several years in the Castle of
Ham with Polignac and his fellow-conspirators.

In the salon of Madame de Saint Ursain were to be found
the best society of Caen: M. de Saint Quentin, M. de
Vanquelin, M. de Sainte Marie, M. de Roncherolles, all
sipping tea a Vanglaise and reviling the Jacobin tendencies
of le roi-citoyen Philippe-Egalite, and whispering their great
hopes of the Due de Bordeaux. All this was very attractive

194

for Brummell, so reminiscent of London; and Madame
de Saint Ursain was soon enchanted with His Majesty's
Consul. Furthermore she told Brummell immediately
that he could pay his rent when he would, and this was an
item that Consul Brummell appreciated to the full.

His valet Francis, having initiated his successor in his
duties, made his bow and departed. This man Selegne cer-
tainly did not lose by attending to Brummell for fourteen
years; for he appeared for an extraordinary large sum in
the list of creditors that Brummell left in Calais ; and after
his return to that town he removed to Boulogne, and with
the money he had saved in BrammelPs service, set up a
"Cafe Selegne 53 in the Grand Rue, and later he opened a
hotel, till the invasion of Napoleon III exploded his hopes
and Selegne had to revert to the more simple business of
cafetier.

Brummell had barely taken possession of his new lodg-
ing in the Rue des Cannes when he found his table "in-
undated*' with invitations and visiting cards: the Prefect,
Monsieur Target (who was the son of the avocat that
refused the benefit of his legal assistance to Louis XVI
when called to defend that unfortunate king), the General
and three or four other big-wigs for whom Brummell had
been given letters by Comte Mole and Conite Sebastiani.
He found himself a great man, even if he did not have a
sixpence in his pocket. They dined and feted him most
liberally, and elected him a member of their club without
a ballot. The Prefect and the local Member of Parlia-
ment, Monsieur de la Pommeraye, gave a great dinner in
honour of the new Britannic Consul, and Brummell pre-
pared <c a neat little extempore' 3 in which he let off a toast
to the success of the commerce between the two countries.

He invented a kind of costume as Consul : for the morn-

195

ing he chose a snuff-coloured coat with a velvet collar a
shade darker, and a waistcoat of washable cashmere on
a white ground, cut from a lady's shawl; and encased
within this original waistcoat emerged the foamy white-
ness of his dazzling cravat. With this brown and white rig-
out he wore dark blue trousers and pointed boots, prim-
rose kid gloves and a very high black topper the crown of
which was slightly larger than the base : the style of the top-
per has become for ever the hallmark of the elegant man.

In the evening he changed to Whig colours of his Lon-
don days ; blue coat with velvet collar, buff waistcoat and
black trousers. On the lapel of his coat he fixed the con-
sular button.

Truly, his capacity to stand out among and above other
men, almost to rule, seemed to survive every vicissitude.
His exile and his financial disarrangements in London and
in Calais had passed over his head without disturbing one
single hair. Empires had risen and fallen while he experi-
mented with the folds of his necktie and the cut of his
coats. And his health, like his taste, was never at fault.

If his appointment to the Consulate was considered
most flattering to the city of Caen, his entry into the town
had been truly sensational. With his usual flair, Brum-
mell exploited the situation to the full. Invested, nay, pro-
tected by his official position, he found a new amusement
in giving vent to his impertinence. A few days after he
had taken up residence in the Rue des Carmes, three
worthy gentlemen of Caen paid him a morning visit, and
found him, though late in the day, busy with all the mys-
teries of his toilette. The three gentlemen were .anxious to
retire immediately, but Brummell airily waved a hand :
"Pray stay, Messieurs, pray remain; I have not yet break-
fasted no excuses ; there is a pate de Joie gras, a pain de
gibier, and many other dainties." But the three bon vivants

196

of Caen modestly felt that they must not take advantage
of such politeness and hospitality; and however attractive
the conversation, they departed. Of course, there was no
pain de gibier on the breakfast sideboard nor pdte de foie
gras; Brummell had invented them counting on the ex-
treme improbability of their accepting his invitation!

His brilliancy, the point of impertinence in his con-
versation was indeed irresistible; and he pressed it im-
partially against both the French and English society of
Caen. The English, indeed and there was quite a large
number of English in the town continually pestered him
with their civilities merely to satisfy their vanity, by being
able to "show" him in their drawing-rooms. Brummell,
who saw through it, aired his sarcastic remarks, even
among the fair sex.

There was a lady, daughter-in-law of the local English
doctor; rather a pretty woman, but always aping the great
lady. One day, as Brummell and a friend were passing
under the balcony at which the lady, like an ordinary
bourgeoise, was fanning herself, her mellifluous voice came
down: "Good evening, Mr. Brummell." The gentlemen
stopped, raised their heads, and BrummelFs companion
also raised his hat; not so Brummell, who had already
sufficiently discomposed the folds of his cravat by looking
up; and they were on the point of resuming their walk,
when the voice came down again: "Now won't you come
up and take tea?" For a moment Brummell stood speech-
less; then he raised again his grey eyes, sopetillant d y esprit,
so full of laughter, and addressed the following pithy and
impudent remark to the lady on the first-floor front:

"Madam, you take medicine, you take a walk, you take
a liberty, but you drink tea." This he was determined not
to do, certainly not with the little lady on the first-floor
front; and proceeded on his way.

197

He was, in fact, in that first year of Consulship in Caen,
a walking lampoon, and his sarcastic vein was very droll
and amusing to those who were not, at the moment, the
victims of his satire; but they all knew that each in turn
would be served up for the amusement of his neighbours.

A French family gave a dinner, almost in his honour,
and everything had been done to make it perfect the
ortolans from Toulouse, the salmon from Rouen, and the
company were Legitimists. The morning after someone
asked Brummell how the dinner had passed off. He lifted
up his hands, shook his head: "Don't ask me, my good
fellow; but poor man, he did his best/'

198

IX

It lasted six months but what a time it was ! Caen was
not London, but it was a little world in itself, and for
Brummell it was his Hundred Days.

During those six months, indeed, towards the end, in
February 1832, Captain Jesse, back to worldly life after
six years in India, enamoured of the Beau whose fame had
spread as far as the eastern outposts, paid a visit to Caen,
anxious to meet George Bryan Brummell in person.

The first encounter and the result of that meeting
was all important, for the young Captain was to turn out
a Boswell to Brummell the first encounter took place in
a Mrs. B 5 s drawing-room.

Jesse had never seen Brummell before; yet, although he
entered the drawing-room with several other visitors, the
extreme neatness of his person, the polished ease of his
address, something peculiarly striking at once pointed him
out. It was quite pleasing to see the graceful manner in
which he made his way through the crowded salon up to
the hostess, the deep bow with which he saluted her,
almost a particular tribute to her. His bow to each of the
other ladies was graduated according to the degree of
intimacy that existed between them; the bow to his
friends being at an angle of forty-five degrees, while a
common acquaintance was acknowledged by one of five;
some were greeted with a slight relaxation of his features
expressing his recognition of the fact that she was an in-
habitant of the same planet as himself.

He had all the bel air, all the tournure of a man of

199

fashion. His dress, on the evening in question, consisted
of a blue coat with a velvet collar, and the consular but-
ton and buff waistcoat, black trousers and boots. His tie
was unsurpassable, and his blanchisseuse had certainly
done her best in the getting up : besides, Brummell always
gave careful instruction to his washerwoman how she was
to fold the cloth of his cravats, and one single speck would
send them back to the soapsuds.

The only articles of jewellery he wore were a plain ring
and a massive chain of Venetian ducat gold, which
served as a guard to his watch: only two links were to be
seen, those that passed from the buttons of his waistcoat
to the pocket. It was a peculiar chain of the same pattern
as those suspended outside the entrance to Newgate
prison. The ring, however, was dug up on the Field of
Cloth of Gold by a labourer, who sold it to Brummell
when he was at Calais. An opera hat and gloves that were
held in his hand, completed an attire which could never
have attracted attention on any other person. But that
was the point his, appearance was noticeable only fpr
its extreme neatness .and for jtKe 'way he , carried ^his
clothes. One evening, when Captain Jesse had become
more intimate, they found themselves at the same dining-
table, and Brummell gently admonished his friend : "My
dear Jesse, I am sadly afraid you must have been reading
Pelham^ but excuse me, you look very much like a mag-
pie!" Jesse did indeed, for he was dressed in a black coat
and trousers with a white waistcoat.

Jesse has recorded minutely the ritual of Brummell at
his toilette that he was privileged to witness many times.
The batterie de toilette was of silver, and elaborate in its
details : there still was a silver spitting-dish of the same
size as a French wash-hand basin, therefore not very
large: and Brummell had pointed out to his friend that

200

"it was impossible to spit in clay". After his shaving was
over a shaving performed with the smallest possible
razor two hours were spent in ablutions.

The door of his bedroom was always left a little open
to carry on conversation, and the Secf ets of his dressing-
table were revealed in the glass upon the mantelpiece of
his salon. He used to stand before the glass, not wearing
his wig, in his dressing trousers, massaging his body with
a stiff brush of bristle something like the strigil used by
Petronius, to regenerate his epidermis; when he had done
with it, as red as a lobster, he was ready for the camisole.
But before dressing or rather robing himself Brummell
took a dentist's mirror in one hand and a pair of tweezers
in the other, and closely examined his forehead and well-
shaved chin, and he did not lay the tweezers down till he
had mercilessly plucked every stray hair that could be
detected on the polished surface of his face. (Jesse never
let Brummell know that he had seen him in the reflection
of the mirror, without his wig.) At last, completely
dressed, every hair in its right place, his cravat a perfec-
tion of folds, his exquisite white cashmere waistcoat
beautifully contrasting with his snuff-coloured day-coat,
which he always kept buttoned up to accentuate the waist,
with his primrose gloves on his hands, and an umbrella
under his arm, his body slightly bent and his tie reflected
in his lucent boots, he emerged from the house and pro-
ceeded, at a very slow pace, either to make a morning call
or to kill the interval till dinner by lounging with an
acquaintance in the Rue St. Jean.

He had now discarded the cane, perhaps because Caen
was often visited by rain, and he was carrying regularly
a brown silk umbrella, which was always protected by a
silk case that fitted as accurately as his own coat. The
handle was surmounted by a head of George IV carved

201

in Ivory. In the street he never took off his hat to anyone,
not even to a lady; it would have been too difficult to
replace it at the prescribed angle, added to which, his
wig might be disturbed. In fine weather the salute of his
associates was acknowledged by a bow or, if the acquain-
tances were on the other side of the street, by an extension
of his arm, and a slight movement of his fingers in the air.

The most entertaining thing, however, was to see him
walking in rainy or muddy weather. As there were no
side-paths, he was too much occupied with his lower
extremities to think of noticing anything but the uneven
paving stones: he always placed his foot on the highest
ones, and so cleverly did he pick his way on the points of
his toes that he contrived to travel the whole length of the
street without contracting one speck of dirt on his boots,
the soles of which were always polished. When his new
friend Jesse walked with him on a rainy day, he always
desired him to "keep his distance", lest the friend's more
careless tread should splash his trousers and his boots.

During those six months Brummell enjoyed life, and
society, _to the full.. He was the Consul, he was an official
personage, there was almost a touch of childish pleasure
in thinking of himself as "official", after the dreary years
of want and worry at Calais ! And he could run up a bill;
the creditors, for the moment, felt honoured.

The ladies of Caen were almost as good as the ladies of
London: there was a conservative refinement in those
provincial drawing-rooms. And occasionally there came
to Caen ladies from London: who was the English lady
to whom he had sworn "by those humble ancestors who
sleep in their parish churchyards" that he would never
reveal her as the authoress of the lines on the "toilet-
table drawer 55 ? He had added the verses to his album;
and as she was demanding of him something in return,

202

Brumrnell sent her his sketch of the late Georgiana of
Devonshire, with a note containing a hint that they should
meet the same day: "I am ashamed to send you so un-
worthy a sketch of a beautiful woman. Do not unjustly
fancy that you are for a moment forgotten, because I do
not immediately remit to you my relics of past times in
writing or in crayon. You shall have others as I go on,
unwillingly digging in old green boxes. The sun shines
bright, and promises me the consolation of meeting you
in your morning's whereabouts. Yours forever and ever,
Amen! 55

He dallied with the Caen ladies, he wrote them charm-
ing letters, with delightful endings: "Ineffably yours",
"Most sensibly yours". Once a letter must have reached
the recipient in a greasy state, on hearing of which this
note was sent in all haste: "Do, in compassion to my in-
veterate proprete, send back the sullied envelope that con-
tained my last packet, and accept this explanatory billet.
The gloves which delivered it were spick and span; but
alas it must have visited your kitchen, and that explains
the blemish; yet, I give you my word, I took no liberties
awe la cuisiniere. . . ."

There was Madame du Lac, a perfect Lady of the Lake,
with the sweetest face and the daintiest foot in that part of
France. There was the G6ntralle, who gave soirees musicales,
the dullness of which was relieved by the GeneraPs and
other amateur singing; and Madam de Rigny who was
the wife of the Minister of Marine's brother, who in Caen
received the taxes while his wife received the company. . . .
So delightfully provincial et sur quatre epinglesl Brummell's
own recording of it all in his letters is a gem:

"Madame de will be charmee to receive the 'black

Infanta' ; shall I send a palanquin for her, or will you pass
her enpanier? Madame de Lac tells me that the artiste for

203

whom you inquired perfectly understands his metier , and
that his ressemblances sont frappantes. I have already for-
gotten his name as one does everything when talking to
her, but he sojourns at the Hotel de France.

"D'Ison's convocation very good last night : all the bril-
liants of Babylon dazzling in their best: Mademoiselle

, the prototype of Madame de la Valliere., when she

took the veil Never doubt, as Hamlet says, I am thine. "

204

X

Madame de St. Ursain had a young daughter, Helene,
now a pupil in the Caen's English school of a Miss
Wheatcroft. Brummell undertook to teach the young lady
of Rue des Garmes how to write his language. His method
was to write to "Miss Aimable" long letters and to correct
her replies and to go over the exercises which she brought
home from school. "Miss Aimable" was only fourteen
years of age, and BrummelTs letters to her were a model
of gentleness : "You have promised to take a lesson with
me tomorrow morning, Christmas Day! What a period
of rejoicing and fete, according to the customs of my native
country, this used to be to me, some years since, while
now of joys that are past, how painful the remembrance! 35
And again: "Dear Miss Aimable, the study of English is
no doubt valuable, but the duties of kindness must not be
neglected for it. For more than a week I have seen no
fresh straw in Ourika's basket, while Tigre is allowed to
torment the parrot to death. I would rather preserve my
feelings of humanity and tenderness for these mute
creatures than acquire all the languages in the world."

JThe evenings in society, the gossiping letters, the
exquisite clothes and the three changes of shirts and
craygtsua day, all were his escape from reality and
reality was already knocking hard on his door. THe ex-
quisite clothes and three changes a day of sliirts, cravats
and allltKe otiief ffumperies of elegance and elegant
living, all this cost a lot more than BnammelPs meagre
.income afforded. It had been easy to get oiit of Calais
clean of debts; but he kad also got out of Calais, 35

205 - -~ -- * "'

thoughtless as a bird, right clean of his official salary. By
mortgaging to the banker Leveux four-fifths of his 10,000
francs of yearly salary, he had reduced his income to a
mere 200 francs a month, a pittance for Brummell. It
was very nice to be able to tell young Captain Jesse that
he always went home to put on a fresh cravat after the
Opera before attending a ball or supper; but the blanchis-
sense's bill grew up accordingly, and the washerwoman's
bill was only one in the many items that meant money,
money, money.

Money troubles had started, indeed, almost immedi-
ately after his arrival at Calais. With fertile resourceful-
ness Brummell thought at once of Leveux, and tried to
restart business connections with his friend and creditor
of Calais. "Mon cher Monsieur" he wrote in April 1831,
"je ne croyez gueres il y a six mois me trouver encore expose a
Vextremite de recourir a voire bonte." He had counted too
much on the promises of his friends, and maybe it would
be another long century of five or six months before his
friends would please themselves to pull him out of his
present position. Would, in the meantime, Monsieur
Leveux consider it expeditious to help him out? "It is not
for luxuries I am concerned; it is not for the pleasures of
life, which I had to give up long ago; but it is a question,
at the moment, of my honour, my reputation, and all my
interests present and future, since I begin to fear a total
lack of means of providing even the official expenses that
fall daily upon me for the running of the Consulate.' 3

In all truth, his friends in London had made no
promises at all; indeed, having seen him, through all their
efforts, properly settled in the Consulate with a handsome
salary, and never imagining the fantastic arrangement of
Calais, they rather congratulated themselves on their
deliverance. The banker Leveux did not reply very

206

speedily, and Brummell wrote again: CC I have been in
hopes for a month to receive your good news. Pushed to
the extreme and to avoid my being chased about by the
people of the town, to save in a word, the coat from my
back, which is, in pure truth, all that is left me. . . ."

This second letter had the desired effect; Leveux cashed
a bill equal to the first four months of the salary, cc to meet
the difficult century", pending help from the friends in
London. But Caen was not Calais, on the high road be-
tween London and Paris, and passing friends could not
be acquainted of his plight.

It was at this point that there entered upon the scene Mr.
Armstrong. Charles Armstrong, of the fashionable Rue
St. Jean, was a general man of business in Caen : he served
the local English colony as grocer, tea merchant, packet
agent, house agent and dealer in foreign exchange. Brum-
mell had met him at the house of several acquaintances;
and Armstrong was quite glad, almost flattered to be of
some assistance to Consul Brummell, who had, most
readily, been of some assistance to him in his official
capacity. So in August we have the first letter from Brum-
mell to Armstrong.

August 1831.

"Dear Armstrong,

"I have been reduced to so low an ebb during the last
three weeks, by delay, and not receiving promised remit-
tances from England, that it is impossible for me to hold
up my head, or to exist in my actual state a day longer.
For ten days I have actually not had five francs in my
possession, and I have not the means of procuring either
wood or peat for my scanty fire, or of getting my things
from the washerwoman. A trifling advance would arrange
these difficulties, and give me further time, but I know
not who to apply to in this place.

207

"You have as yet been a good friend to me, and may have
sufficient confidence in me, and inclination to extend
some additional timely service to me. What I have al-
ready assured you I now repeat, with every honourable
intention and feeling, you will not repent your kindness.

"I have not anything to offer you by way of security,
excepting my signature, if it is not my small stock of plate,
for which I paid six hundred francs, and my watch and
chain, worth as much more; to these you are welcome,
only do not let me be exposed to the most utter distress
and want, from my temporary inability to command a few
miserable francs. I am not going out, and if you can spare
five minutes in the course of the morning, you will oblige
me by coming down here: these matters are better
arranged in person than by writing.

Yours,

G.B."

Armstrong settled with the most pressing creditors and
declined to take away the offered security. But a short
time afterwards another and more urgent letter was sent
to Armstrong. The valet, Isidore, successor to the more
loyal Frangois, had soon found out that his exquisite
master had no money at all, and became impertinent;
gave notice and threatened to open the trenches of the
law.

"Dear Armstrong,

"That d d ungrateful brute, Isidore, persecutes me

at every instant: the fellow says he is going to Paris on
Thursday, and will not depart without being paid, in
money or by bill, and I believe him capable of employing
a kuissier.

"I am wretchedly bedevilled, and out of spirits, and hate

208

going out of the house, or I would call and thank you for
your note of yesterday.

Truly yours,

G.B."

Once more Armstrong obliged; this time, however, he
accepted a gold watch with chain and seals for his favour.

Two Caen bankers, Messrs. Gilbert & Bellamy, fol-
lowed in the pertinacious Isidore's wake; with Armstrong's
signature they agreed to stave off for a season.

Ready money, nevertheless, was absolutely necessary
at times, to stop the proceedings of some importune credi-
tor, or to provide to the daily disbursements of Brum-
melFs menage; once again Armstrong of the Rue St. Jean
has to come to the rescue:

"Dear Armstrong,

"I am positively pressed for two hundred and eighty
francs, at the moment, that is, before four o'clock today,
or I shall be exposed to the utmost disgrace. The things,
that is, the plate, are in the closet in my room, and you
may have them by sending any confidential person for
them; but I do not like to trust my servant with them, as
it may be known, or she may be seen with them in the
street. It is the urgency of the moment that I am anxious to
weather; small difficulties often extend to irreparable des-
truction of character; such is my situation at this instant.

Yours,

G.B."

But this time Mr. Armstrong walked out of the house
in the Rue des Garmes with the box of silver cutlery.

Only his landlady, Madame de St. Ursain, played the
Good Samaritan: she was lenient with Brummell, and as

209

her lodger forgot to pay, she pretended to forget that he
owed the rent like the bookseller Leleux at Calais, who
would have kept him for nothing if only he had stayed,
happy to find the value of his rent in the amusing conver-
sation of his tenant, so Madame de St. Ursain felt that
Mr. Brummell was such a distinguished gentleman; it was
an honour to have him in her house!

But would the ladies of Caen ever have espied from
BrummelTs countenance his worries and troubles? He
chatted with them, he discussed with them in his letters
and billets the latest books: "Have you read the American
Journey of Fanny Kemble? I begin to grow a little weary
of her artificial sentiment, and particularly of all the Fs
which overload her recollections." And he criticizes Lady
Blessington, the patroness of the new star of fashion, the
handsome and fortunate Gomte d'Orsay : "Her novel, The
Two Friends, will bore you to death. Lady Blessington,
now that her beauty is vanishing, has become over-
saintly, like all aristocratic penitents. . . ."

One April morning, however, Brummell is startled by
his faithful Madame de St. Ursain, who in great agitation
comes up to his rooms to tell him that downstairs, at the
door of the house, are two bailiffs who are threatening to
break into his rooms. Hurriedly the good lady urges
Brummell to hide, opens a cupboard in her adjoining
room and pushes him in amidst a confusion of gowns and
crinolines. . . . Brummell shudders at such undignified
expediency but does not lose his presence of mind, and
from flounces and lace calls out to the dear helpmate:
"Madame de St. Ursain! For mercy's sake, take away the
key!"

The position is now getting quite precarious. Brum-
mell finda that his position as Consul at Caen is not, alter
all, much of a situation. The salary is small, the town is

THE BEAU IN EXILE

petty, the duties are trivial. He has heard that his col-
league at Le Havre, Mr. Gordon, is retiring: why not
apply for the post? Or better still, why not try to be sent
to Italy, at Leghorn, where the living is cheap and the
climate delightful ?

Lord Palmerston whom he used to meet, in the great
old days, at Hamette Wilson's (confound the harlot!)
is now at the Foreign Office, and is all powerful. He has
no particular claim on him, it is true, for Palmerston was
a Harrovian, not an Etonian like himself; but still. . , .

Brummell wrote to Lord Palmerston: to clothe his
petition in dignity he explained, almost complained of the
paucity and triviality of his work in the Caen Consulate.

It was a great blunder. For it was a bad moment to
complain to Palmerston of the paucity of work in any
consulate : the Government were about to send an expedi-
tionary force into Afghanistan, and the Foreign Secretary
was looking around to find the funds. Instead of taking up
BrummelPs hint of transfer to a busier post, Palmerston
replied with a chilly letter, inquiring purely whether
there was any necessity for a consulate at Caen. Brum-
mell made a second and fatal mistake. He replied:

"Your lordship must be aware that by informing the
Government of the inutility of a consul at Caen, I am
actuated by purely disinterested motives. Your lordship
will also bear in mind that my bread depends upon the
trifling emolument which I receive as consul at Caen.
Should your lordship, therefore, on my suggestion, think
fit to abolish the office, I trust some means of subsistence
will be provided for me by the Government."

Lord Palmerston thanked Brummell for the informa-
tion, made great promises, but for the moment abolished
the Consulate at Caen. Brummell was left on the rocks.
Disaster was imminent.

211

PART FOUR

The Last Reception

He should have died young. His life should have
ended with an accident, a dramatic episode. He
would then have died in the full glory of his legend.
Instead, from this moment he became merely a poor man.

From the time that it was reported that he was no
longer the representative of His British Majesty in Caen,
his creditors rushed to the door in the Rue des Garmes.
The first and the fiercest, was a Monsieur Longuet, who
kept a restaurant from which at times Brummell had his
meals sent in. Monsieur Longuet claimed a credit of
1,200 francs; and he swore that he would have him
arrested if he left the house, or would starve him if he
kept to the house. The siege was raised by a group of
young men, who were good customers of Monsieur Lon-
guet, and going immediately to the shop they informed
him that if he attempted to molest the unfortunate debtor,
they would never dine again at his place.

At this stage Brummell made the error of professing
himself an out-and-out Carlist; and this lost him the sym-
pathies of the officialdom and of those useful people whom
he had called "the tradesmen of the Prefecture".

Quite soon he found himself without a SOILS in his purse.
"Dear Armstrong, 5 ' said the note he sent in great hurry,
"send me seventy-five francs to pay my washerwoman; I
cannot get a shirt from her, and she is really starving on
my account. I have not actually money to pay my
physician, or for my letters to and from England."

Armstrong complied once more. But how could the

215

position be faced? There was still the equivalent of one
year's salary owing to Leveux in Calais, and no salary
was coming in. And Brummell felt a sorrowful regret for
the good Madame djs St. Ursain to whom he had never
paid anything in rent but for a paltry 600 francs. The
least he could do was to leave the pleasant rooms in the
Rue de Cannes and move to some cheaper lodgings.

He should never have left the house of Madame de St.
Ursain; he should not have detached himself from the
friendly house in this hour of need. Yet, he felt that how-
ever callous he could be with his phalanx of surly credi-
tors, he owed this act of gentlemanly decency to the good
and charming Madame de St. Ursain.

He found rooms au troisieme at the Hotel d'Angleterre,
where he would be en pension, dining at the table d'hote;
and in September 1832 he came away from the Rue des
Cannes. He was so heartbroken that although he had to
pass Madame de St. Ursain's drawing-room, he could not
face going in to say good-bye. Some months later in the
new year, he knocked at her door and when the good lady
reminded him that he had gone away without bidding her
adieu, he took her hand and confessed to her: " Madame
de St. Ursain, I would have willingly wished you good-
bye, but I was in tears."

Soon after his change of lodgings, in the autumn, his
distress became so acute that he accepted the advice con-
tained in a friend's letter, that it would be much wiser to
have his embarrassments explained in person to his
friends by a man of business, and he induced Armstrong
to go to London on his behalf. The friend cc a good angel
in London" added: "I don't know how to get at the
Duke of Wellington or Lord Willoughby, but I will write
to George Anson and his brother Litchfield, to Bagot, Al-

216

vanley and many others that may occur to me, and among
them, by the way, old Allen who, I assure you, spoke of
you the other day in the kindest manner. ..."

Armstrong took boat for England in mid-autumn. But
as soon as his friend and man-of-business had gone,
Brummeirs spirits flagged. Would his friends of St.
James's turn a cold shoulder to the returning tale of his
misfortunes ? Thus brooding in his lonely rooms, he was
taken ill, and one Sunday evening while He was writing
a letter to the sweet "Miss Aimable" to keep her in prac-
tice with her English, but much more, to pour out the
loneliness of his heart "Oh, this uncomfortable weather!
I am freezing an coin de monfeu, and you must not, then, in
common compassion, expect either amusement or instruc-
tion from a malheureux in my torpid state. There are mo-
ments, too, when I am subject to that sort of overwhelming
depression of spirits that makes me incapable of anything
but to brood over my own grievances le plus grand des
malheurs est celui de ne tenir a rien, et d'etre isole. I am sick of
the world and of existence. . . ."At this point the pen
dropped from his hand, he felt a giddiness, and then his
right side went numb, and as he tried to get up and call
for help, his voice, to a servant that chanced to pass the
door, sounded thick and unnatural, Itwas asmoke. A doc-
tor was quickly summoned, who bled and comforted him,
and made no mention of the paralysis he knew it to be.

It was a joy to hear that so many friends were inquiring
after him; and as soon as he could hold the pen again, he
wrote witty notes to the ladies. But to Madame de St.
Ursain he opened his heart more fully: "I have risen to-
day with my head perfectly quiet, my chest and all its
vicinity composed and free from those excruciating spasms
which I thought, and at one time sacrilegiously prayed,
would put an end to my sufferings in this world. . . ."

217

A few days later he was well enough to go to a wedding.
And, soon afterwards, Armstrong returned from England,
the harbinger of welcome, oh, how welcome news! Arm-
strong had been a persuasive suppliant, and all the old
friends had rallied to the help of "poor Brummell re-
duced to two small rooms on the third floor of a cheap
hotel in Caen". The Duke of Wellington, George Anson
and his brother, Alvanley, Bagot, Allen, Coventry and
Worcester, and others too, made donations to the fund,
Burlington, Pembroke, Standish and Charles Greville the
diarist. Each had placed, so to speak, his willing donation
into Mr. Armstrong's hat, in memory of having enjoyed
the favour of BrummelPs friendship, in the years gone by.

Armstrong proceeded at once to put things in order
according to the long list prepared before his departure,
and commencing with the rent due to the good Madame
de St. Ursain. With the banker Leveux he reached a
temporary compromise, and the most pressing creditors
were paid off. In the new year Brummell is again the
Beau in full swing and attends the balls. To the ladies he
recommends Beckford's Letters from Paris, and to Madame
de St. Ursain he sends as a new year's gift a modest present :
a knife for cutting bread and butter at her morning break-
fast, with a mother-of-pearl handle: "I wish it consisted
of one genuine pearl ! Korizaida is a beautiful modern
Greek name which Byron mentioned as often among the
'native seraphs' of those soft classic isles its construction
is Cluster of Pearls ; should you be disposed to change your
own, it would, in metaphor, be appropriate to you all.

"For many days I have not transgressed the wicket of
my cell before vespers I sit en Calmouk, enveloped in
sable, musing over the fire like a poet in distress and
ruminate upon other times and fairy prospects that will
never come again. I was up to a dissipated hour this

218

morning, playing at five-sous whist with Madame d'A-

Improvident pursuit! She made half-closed eyes at me,
instead of attending to the game; this afflicted me after-
wards with a cauchemar: I fancied, in a dream, I was
struggling with my Aunt Margaret's ghost. I am still dor-
mant, and only just able to whisper to you how sincerely
I am yours. . . ."

The lady of the sentimental glances was a diminutive
wizen of a countess, who took quantities of snuff, and
wrote satirical verses on the manners of the juste milieu
and sonnets to the youthful Henri Cinq. And she was
wont to say: "Ah, Monsieur, que nos salons sont tristes! Je ne
my connais plus. Dans majeunesse, unefemme aoait ses amis,
et son mari les siennes; chacun s'amusait selon sa maniere: a
present on voit les epoux toujours ensembles! Ah! qu'il sont
vilains les usages tfaujordhui"

Is it very silly for a man of fifty to fall in love with a
girl of seventeen? He had known Madame de St. Ursain's
daughter when she was a child of fifteen; now she was a
young woman of seventeen, and, in those times, many a
girl of fifteen was even being married to a man old enough
to be her grandfather. He had treated her as a little pupil
to whom he was imparting lessons in his beautiful and
witty English, and had received in return her admira-
tion. Now there was little left to be admired, in a poor
sick and disenchanted Beau the wreck of George Brum-
mell; and he discovered that he was in love with a prim
and winsome young girl. How silly, and how foolish; and
yet, how sweet to write a tender love letter to "Miss
Aimable" who has gone to the sea at Luc-sur-Mer!

Tuesday, July.

"Millions of thanks to you for Ayesha. I have not quite

219

finished with her; for I cannot now read, nor write, nor
do anything in a methodical way; therefore I return her
to you, with every expression of admiration for your
mutual excellences; with Ayesha, indeed, I have only
made a transitory acquaintance you I know already by
heart.

"Why, in the name of common prudence and my own
tranquillity, could I not have been contented to restrict
my knowledge of you to the worldly etiquette of taking off
my hat to you, when we casually met? During those
years that I have vegetated upon the barren moor of my
later life, I have sedulously avoided running my crazy
head into what may be termed inconsequent distractions ;
and now, in spite of all my theoretical circumspection and
security, I find myself over-head and ears, heart and soul,
in love with you. I cannot for the life of me, help telling
you so; but, as all considerate reason has not at times
utterly abandoned me, I shall put myself into a strait-
waistcoat and be chained to the bedpost.

"Perhaps, after having undergone such a compulsatory
infliction, and the bereavement of at least half the blood
in my veins, I may be restored to my more cool and sedate
senses. I shall then turn Anchorite, and flee away to the
desert. Adieu! I have yet sufficient command over my
drooping faculties to restrain any tributary tears from
falling over my farewell; you might doubt their reality;
and we all know that they may be counterfeited upon
paper, with a sponge and rose-water!

"Addio, ben amata it was my intention to go to the sea-
side for a day, and be dipped, as they treat unfortunates
suffering under hydrophobia; but, without a miracle, I
do not presume that I shall have regained force of resolu-
tion and intellect adequate to my attempting the voyage.
And there, too, I should see you again, source and spirit

220

of all my tribulations, and my cicatrizing wounds would
bleed anew; still that would have been my sole object in
going, to exist amphibiously, like an Undine, between
raging billows and desolate rocks ; and yet the shepherd
in Virgil grew, at last, acquainted with Love, and found
him a native of the rocks. But you would laugh clandes-
tinely at me in your bustled sleeve; for there is nothing
more ridiculous than a person in my desperate state; and
I should only have to "bay the moon" with my solitary
plaints, and exasperate you, and the winds and the waves,
with my vain jeremiads. For the future, I shall haunt you
with sentimental elegies upon mourning paper, with a
death's head crucified upon bones, by way of an appro-
priate vignette.

"I think X beautiful, and I like her manner as much

as her face. If you send me back the drawing, I shall sup-
pose you are offended with me: keep it with you at Luc,
that will be some consolation to me while I am at the
St. Luke's of this place. What am I to do for a diurnal
matinal correspondent and afternoon gossip, now that
you are "over the hills and far away"? I am almost in-
clined to think that your sensibilities are as marbrees as
your snowy complexion ; still I shall ever be immutably
yours in this world; and if our most devoted wishes and
memories are allowed in the next, mine will still remain
inviolable towards you.

GEORGE BRUMMELL."

Tuesday evening.

"May the recording angel, who registers above the
amiable feelings and thoughts of mortals, preserve you
for having written that last note to me! It has at once
extricated me from the very abyss of gloomy and dis-

221

consolate reflections, and has restored me to peace and
equanimity. After reading it, I sought another wander to
the Cafarelli, and returned home to my solitary room at
the hotel, contented with myself and all the world. I do
not know myself again.

"I have this morning perambulated over this deserted
town, acknowledged everyone whose physiognomy was
familiar to me, lance two bad jokes at His Excellency

Monsieur le Baron de , in judgment of his new

heathenish mouse-coloured pantaloons, and even dis-
turbed my hat with my best strait-laced salutation to

Madam d 5 A and her contemptible troop of monkeys

in the shape of men. When I mentioned the Baron to you
the other day, as having fallen into an inheritance, it was
all mythological moonshine. Poor fellow! I believe he
has nothing but his pantaloons and his misconceived
amour propre to which he can look forward.

"Upon my knees I supplicate one of you to write to me,
when you have not any more interesting objects to divert
you, when the expanse of waters and the unfruitful waste
of earth which surrounds you have wearied your unvaried
prospect pray write and tell me you think of me, be it
so or not; "be for once forsworn 35 , if you are thinking of
anyone else; it will gratify me beyond all other sublunary
blessings.

"Do not imagine that I am endeavouring to flatter you ;
I never did encourage such a subtle and degrading inten-
tion, and I never shall, but you write beautifully.

"I have sent you some books in continuation ofLes deux
Fiancees, which I have never read, by way of courier.

Ever yours,

G.B."

222

II

A [Other Christmas came. In his rooms at the Hotel
d'Angleterre he was "as cold as a homeless dor-
mouse". But to one of his lady friends he described a bal
masque at Madame de Rigny on New Year's Eve, at which
he had galloped with the rest.

The salon of Madame de Rigny was somewhat mixed,
for there one could see the ultra-Carlist, the modfreand the
juste milieu, the Guizoistes, the Molistes and Thieristes;
and the dancing was very prim and proper with lesjeunes
demoiselles chaussees in satin, and the gentlemen a little bit
on the provincial side; but one could still jest and be
thought the smartest man in Caen.

But towards the end of April he had another attack of
paralysis : he was seized at the table-d'hote, and he real-
ized it because he felt his soup trickling down his chin. . . .
He kept his presence of mind, and at once got up from
the table, and quietly putting his napkin to his face, left
the room with such perfect composure that no one
imagined what had really happened. Before going to his
room, that was reached by a secondary staircase on the
other side of the courtyard, he went into the adjoining
room, and looked in the looking-glass over the mantel.
Alas, one glance was sufficient, for it showed that his
mouth was drawn up to his ear; and he hastily retreated
to his apartment.

He felt, indeed, desperate and worried. Would the dis-
figurement be permanent? He took off his coat, and let
himself fall on the arm-chair. Till that day he had never

223

owned to more than fifty years; indeed, only a little while
ago he had asserted that a gentleman's age should be
established at five-and-forty, unlike Louis Quatorze who
had fixed it at seventy, I 3 age de tout le monde \

A good physician came, humane and generous, who
attended him without any fee. But he told him that it was
necessary to shave a few hairs at the back of the head.
These few mementoes of his former chevelure Brummell
was most anxious to preserve, although they were usually
concealed by his wig; and he asked the doctor, with a mel-
ancholy smile, whether it was absolutely necessary to lose
them. The doctor replied that the blister could not be put
on unless the precious hairs were removed. With becoming
composure Brummell "handed" his head to the barber.

After this second attack he was under no illusions : "Do
not ask me" he wrote "anything about my health; it
makes me melancholy, and that abaissement sometimes
makes me very childish. Addio, car a arnica"

"Miss Aimable" this year went early to Luc-sur-Mer.
This thought saddened him a great deal. He, who had
played at love all these years and kept so adroitly beyond
the range of passion, now that he was old and ill and poor
and no longer dazzling, was deeply in love with a girl
young enough to be his daughter.

Before she left he gave her his album the precious
album that was the treasure-chest of his past. "You may,
perhaps", he wrote to her, "find something in my old
album to yawn over : what it contains was written in other
and happier days, and most of them were given to me by
the authors themselves, such as the Duchess of Devon-
shire, poor Byron and Sheridan." He revealed that the
verses unsigned were the namby-pamby compositions of
an unfortunate person who should be nameless, but whom

224

she cut dead during the past several evenings. "It is but
a poor old album indeed, and unworthy as a gift to you,
but it has been for years the constant companion and
friend of more solitary hours and has often solaced and
diverted me through the many vicissitudes, errors and
disappointments of my life." Alas, the Beau was getting
sentimental.

Solitude was made dismal by poverty. He made friends
with a little mouse that, one morning, came out of the
wainscot of his so-called sitting-room at the Hotel
d'Angleterre, and stood looking at him as if asking to
share his breakfast. By dint of gentle training he taught the
mouse to crawl up his leg on to the breakfast-table and to
eat out of his hand.

The mouse made its regular appearance every morn-
ing, at the same hour. He became very much attached to
it like the prisoner's spider. One day the waiter threw a
boot-jack at the little mouse and killed it. Brummell was
much put out of spirits : he confided it to his dear friend
with great embarrassment: " Madame de St. Ursain,
were I to see a man and a dog drowning together in the
same pond, and no one was looking on, I would prefer
saving the dog! 53

The hope of obtaining employment was but transient.
His friends in London were bringing all the pressure they
could upon Lord Palmerston, and one day, during sum-
mer, a message came from the Government that he should
be prepared to leave. He replied to Earl Grenville, now
Ambassador in Paris, enclosing a letter for Palmerston in
which he hoped the direction would be toward Italy; and
hopefully he mentioned it to "Miss Aimable": "Should
this be awarded to me, I shall take up my wallet and staff
and seek the auspicious haven of that country.' 5 But soon
a reply came that there was at present no suitable vacancy

225

either in Italy or elsewhere. The fact was that the Foreign
Office had been informed of the physical unfitness of
Bruxnmell at this time.

The disappointment was beyond words. The spasmodic
attacks recurred again; and the anxiety of poverty in-
creased. He sought relief in laudanum. Some days^later
he went to Luc-sur-Mer; would his chagrin be relieved
in the long-desired company of "Miss Airnable" ?

The journey was not a long one, for Luc-sur-Mer was
only about nine miles from Caen. But it was a most un-
romantic spot. The accommodation for visitors was bad,
and the sea-breeze was strongly impregnated with the
smell of herrings. It was, as a seaside resort, much fre-
quented by the fashionable people of the neighbouring
towns : sometimes a few exclusives of the haute societe of
Paris came to Luc, afraid of the bourgeois crowd at Dieppe;
there were, at Luc, the celebrated oysters from the
Rochers de Cancale; but altogether it appeared to Brum-
mell a vile caravanserai. Maybe his frame of mind con-
tributed to make him find absurd the customs of the
ladies, who, to be very careful of their complexions, took
their parasols into the sea with them, and much noise and
mock-modesty went on between the two groups of male
and female bathers, separated by a wooden partition,
and ablutions commenced to instrumental music. . . .

The real cause of irritation, however, was that "Miss
Aimable" was not willing to accept the courtship of the
aged Beau. And when a lonely man is in love, he may be
inclined to overlook prudence.

On his return to Caen, there were new worries, ever
increasing worries. The glorious release operated by Arm-
strong on his return from England was once again
finished. His devoted friends had generously arranged

226

with Armstrong to provide 120 a year to his general
maintenance ; but this again was little more than what his
former consular salary had been after deducting what he
had mortgaged to Leveux at Calais. Alas, even this small
contribution of 120 a year was falling in arrears: were
his friends in London deserting him? And Leveux of
Calais was clamouring for the 15,000 francs still owing
to him, to which there was a further 5,000 owing to the
good Armstrong, and the bill for the troisieme at the
Hotel d'Angleterre was going up unpaid.

Worse than anything, unbearable even only to mention
it, his wardrobe was now so threadbare that he had to
write to Alvanley: "My old friend, King Allen had
promised to send me some habiliments for my body, de-
nuded like a new-born infant and what a Beau I once
was !" Indeed, indeed, it was heartbreaking to have to beg
some clothes for he who was once Beau Brummell.

At the end of the year he suffered another attack of
paralysis. It was less severe than the previous one, and he
put up a brave front: "Miss Aimable" was now a debu-
tante, and Brummell followed her from one salon to an-
other, praising "her snowy complexion and beautiful
eyebrows . . .". But in January 1835 a new storm of wor-
ries broke over him. Even Frangois the valet wrote from
Calais, to say that his old master's laundress was demand-
ing money for the keep of a dog that Brummell had
entrusted to her; and Frangois wanted to know why Mr.
Brummell had forgotten to secure for him the post he
promised to recommend him; and Monsieur Leleux may

have to give up Le Pauvre Diable Brummell answered,

promising to send money for the keep of the dog Mouton
"as soon as possible", and added that he would do "all
in my power to obtain for you the work which you
desire", and if M. Leleux had to part with his house "will

227

you try to get hold for me of Loro the parrot . . .". Almost
as an afterthought, he added in the letter: "I am told
that M. Marshall thinks of leaving Calais, having been
offered a better consulate. If you hear anything about
that, let me know at once. 55 "PS. M. Dabert of Paris
has written to me that he has a bill of 380 francs accepted
by me, and due the i8th of this month, which will be
presented to me here. Tell Valobra that I entrusted to
him a little golden box with medallions in enamels, the
value of which should have closed that claim, and that
I shall not pay the bill in question before I know what has
become of the said box, and another m papier-mache which
I gave him for a model. " Poor Brummell!

In the spring "Miss Aimable" left Caen for England,
to go there to complete her education. Brummell was
desolate. "You are going away. It is a melancholy reflec-
tion for me that this is probably the last time I shall ever
again write to you. Some day, perhaps ere long, you will
read more of me, with the rest of the world who may give
themselves the trouble. Enclosed, I send you letters for
two of my oldest friends, high in their office at Court; you
will be favourably received in the quarter to which they
will present you. My nerves are too shattered, and my
rheumatism too inveterate to enable me to call and take
leave."

She wrote to him in April. "You do not know", he
wrote back, "the good your letter has done me."

228

Ill

Ten days later, one fine day in May 1835, early in the
morning, he was roughly awakened. He opened his
eyes to look into the face of a jack-booted man the figure
of Justice. The kuissier produced a writ of arrest, at the
suit of M. Leveux of Calais, for fifteen thousand francs,
and intimated that unless he could pay the amount
forthwith he must go to prison. Brummell, who did not
clearly understand, and felt ill at ease without his wig,
requested that they would allow him to dress; but the
unpleasant-looking man ordered him to put on his
clothes without more ado and follow him immediately.
At this, Brummell broke down. He prayed, he groaned,
lamented and finally gave way to the most trivial despair.

He had to get out of bed and slip on his clothes before
the intruders. For the first time in his life, he was under
the necessity of dressing in a hurry.

In the meantime his landlady, Madame Fichet, had
sent a servant to several of Brummeirs friends to acquaint
them of his arrest; but the sum was too large for any kind
of intervention. Of this Brummell himself was well aware;
and he sent for a coach to take him to prison a coach
which he had not the money to pay for. He also entreated
Madame Fichet to take care of all his papers: "They are
the only things I possess to which I attach particular
value; they are of no use to anyone else, mats pour moi,
Madame Fichet, Us sont un vrai tre'sor; when I am gone, pray
collect them and lock them up with your own hands. 55 A
waiter came to announce that \htfiacre was ready. Two

229

gendarmes and the huissier got in the coach with their
prisoner, and they moved to their sad destination.

On his arrival at the gaol he was locked up in a cell
with common prisoners. The floor was of stone, and the
furniture consisted only of the three truckle-beds of his
companions; there were no chairs, but one was brought
in for his use.

The next day a friend came to condole and brought
messages from the ladies. Brummell managed to send a
note to a friend: it was hastily written in pencil and

scarcely legible.

In Prison, $th May 1835.

"I still breathe, though I am not of the living the state
of utter abstraction in which I have been during the last
thirty hours yet clouds my every sense. I have just re-
ceived your note may heaven bless you all for your good
devotedness in remembering me at such a moment.

"I have been the victim of a villain, who has closed upon
me, without giving me the remotest intimation of his
designs. I am perfectly innocent of anything bearing the
least dishonourable construction in this malheureuse affaire;
and if I was not deserving of the interest you express to-
wards me, I would not demand it.

"I will write to you when I can. Ever most sincerely
yours.

G.B."

The day after his arrest, his friends, both English and
French, exerted themselves to obtain for him the indul-
gence of a private room; but the gaol was very full. One
of the judges^ however, permitted Brummell to share, dur-
ing the day, the apartment of a Monsieur Godefroi, a
journalist who, as girant responsable for a legitimist paper
called I? Ami de la Verity was confined to prison for a politi-

230

cal offence. At night Brummell had to sleep in a narrow
passage communicating with another part of the prison
a corridor barely wider than his bed, but it was a paradise
compared with the common room. The view from the
window of this corridor was not a very cheering one;
through the bars on the left Brummell could see the
courtyard of the women prisoners, whose hands were
generally busy at their distaffs, while their lips emitted
raucous and vulgar words. In front was the yard and small
garden of La Pistole, and farther to the right was the yard
called La Faille, from the material on which the prisoners
slept, in contradistinction to the wool-beds of the former.
Beyond this was the outer wall of the prison, the roofs
of the houses in the Quartier St. Martin, and the tops of
a few lime trees. But the view of the green trees was small
compensation, and in the daytime Brummell descended
the forty steps to the cell of M. Godefroi, which was con-
sidered the best in the prison: one could contemplate,
down below, the fellows condemned to the galleys.

IJis .letters tell us that he suffered from want of food, but
even more from want of soap.

In Prison, May n.

"The kindness of every human being within the sphere
of my acquaintance in this town has by degrees restored
me to equanimity. How shall I be able to repay you for
this benevolence? Devoutly I thank you for The Student",
it will be an early resource to me. I am, I believe, this
evening to be transferred from my present den of thieves
to the towers of Matilda, and to the sainted arms of les
soeurs de CharitL There I shall again breathe fresh air, and
be comparatively in peace. I cannot describe to you what
I have suffered here.

"H , in the frequent moments I have seen him since

his return, has felt and acted towards me with the affec-

231

tion of a brother. I cannot today trust myself further in
writing to you ; remembrance of you and those who be-
long to you will crowd upon my thoughts, and I might
relapse into my recent imbecilities by the endeavour.
Adieu! Persevere in all your excelling goodness towards
me. It may please Providence to guide the hearts of those
who once better knew me to imitate your kindness.
Ever sincerely yours,

G.B.

"PS. You will perceive the extremities to which I am
reduced I am about to seal to you with a wafer! Do not
even whisper this indecorum, for perhaps I may again
frequent the world."

In Prison, Saturday.
"Dear Armstrong,

"Henri de St. Marie told me yesterday you had sent me
a bottle of Esprit de Savon I have never received it. If it
had been left to Bassy, the chemist, to send, of course I
shall never see it; should it have been remitted for con-
veyance to the hotel, equal negligence will attend its
destiny. In spite of all my friends have said to them in
expostulation of the shameful pitifulness of the morsel
they send to me by way of dinner, they get daily more
meagre and miserable, and it is really not sufficient for
the poor cat that keeps me company, neither does it
arrive before half-past six, malgre your orders to them. I
cannot help telling you what was the banquet yesterday
dispatched to me: one solitary chop, about the size of an
gcu, enveloped in a quire of greasy paper, and the skeleton
of a pigeon, a bird I could never fancy. I must not omit to
mention the accompaniment of half a dozen potatoes.
Such was the meal of yesterday evening, after a fast of

232

twelve hours. It is not, I am certain, the fault of the son,
but the ladrme of the pere et mere, with which I have been
so long acquainted. If they transmit me nothing more
solid and bountiful this evening, I shall be reduced to
borrow a tranche of the bouilli from which the soupe maigre
of my neighbours the brigands is extracted. I have not
seen a soul today. I have no news, and I am in the very
slough of despondency.

Yours, G g

^ r , In Prison, Monday.

My dear Armstrong,

"Many thanks for your unremitting kindness, in im-
proving the quality of my humble repast. To your good
offices, I had yesterday the satisfaction of being indebted
for a sufficient though homely dinner.

"I have sent to you two serviettes, which I had neglected,
belonging to the Hotel d'Angleterre; they are the last
remaining in my possession from that quarter. You will
oblige me by sending to me, today, three towels for my
toilette*, and the same number every six days, for I cannot
procure even a clout to rub myself down in this nauseous
place. You will not, I am sure, forget either that every
three days it is incumbent on me to pay for the necessities
of breakfast, eau-de-vie, candles, etc. while you are here
or during your absence.

"I will beg you carefully to take charge of everything I
left behind me at the hotel, particularly two boxes; the
one mahogany with brass ribs, and G.B. on a plate at the
top the other with a glass top, covering worked birds
drinking out of a vase; it was the labour and gift of the
Duchess of York, and I have a reverence for it the latter
has a leather case, which is either in the cupboard or the
armoire out of the sitting-room, or in the other recess where

233

you will find my trunks, etc., etc. Pray send me what
remains in the drawers of the bedroom there are some
waistcoats, drawers, pantaloons, etc., and in the upper
tiroir, sundry trifling things which I forgot, but which I
may have occasion for. The clock, vases, brown candle-
sticks, and in short everything in the room is my own, not
omitting the old green velvet arm-chair. There is one
insignificant article which I also wish you would transmit
to me: it is under the small commode in the sitting-room,
with a white marble slab on the top (which also belongs
to me), and of which I am every evening in want, a boot-
jack that shuts up. Let the large basin and water-jug be
taken care of.

"This is all that I can recollect perhaps there maybe
other trifles in the armoire, adjoining the sitting-room,
which at the instant escape my memory; let them be
preserved.

"Enclosed, I deliver to you a list of every debt which I
owe in this country of France; you will have the goodness
to add your own just and excellent claims upon me, and
those due to the hotel those in the list to whose names I
have attached a cross. I am ignorant of the precise amount
of their remaining claims upon me; you can easily ascer-
tain them. Beyond these, so help me Heaven, I have not
an existing debt, either in my handwriting, or by oral

promise, in this country. Young B is waiting below

to carry my letter; therefore, I can only add, my dear
Armstrong, how very sincerely,

I am, yours,

G.B."

The indispensables of his toilet arrived at the prison,
one by one, sent by Armstrong, by Henri de St. Marie
and by several of the adoring ladies.

234

An intelligent man can manage even in prison; and in
a twinkle of an eye Brummell had hired one of the other
prisoners, a Paul Lapine, a former drummer of the army,
as his valet. The leader-writer Godefroi became day after
day accustomed to the most extraordinary toilette anyone
could ever imagine within the cell of a gaol. "II consa-
crait" Godefroi used to tell in years after, "trois heures a sa
toilette." Each detail was executed with extreme attention.
He actually washed and shaved every day; each day he
made a complete ablution of each part of his body, using
the large basin of an old lavabo that had joined him in
prison, together with the dressing-case which was full of
bottles of oils and of cosmetics. For this operation of daily
cleanliness, unheard of in the history of prison-life, he
used each day from twelve to fifteen litres of water and
two litres of milk expressly brought to him each morning
by an anonymous donor. His valet Lapine he had re-
named Lafleur, and he, an old officer, had been quick
enough to size-up the drummer Lapine as an excellent
batman. The fun was that Lafleur was immensely proud
to valet his new master; he never regretted the climbing
of steps he had to make to carry upstairs all the water.
The only thing that worried him was the waste of those
two litres of milk which could have been so easily and
profitably converted in a couple of glasses of eau-de-vie!

Soon Brummell overcame the problem of food. The
adoring ladies of Calais sent him in "their benefaction
en forme de gateaux": they thought of him not as a prisoner
but as an invalid, and they sent him hampers of wine and
jellies and pdtes. He replied with witty and cheerful notes,
asking for some tit-bits also for his companion Minette,
"la chatte noire, who is in the straw at my feet, having pro-
duced three hungry kittens her delicate state disdains
the unleavened bread of the prison".

235

His Mends also thought of the dreariness of the even-
ing, and in the basket which carried the provisions were
also a few volumes of light reading; they were always
thankfully received: "If The Student had not belonged to
you, I should not have been able to wade through ten
of its pages ; and I can only wonder that the author of
Eugene Aram and Pompei should have buried his brains in
such a production. I cannot tell you how much it gratifies
me to know that your domestique brings my daily bread
from the hotel : these trifling circumstances do one worlds
of good at the moment. Good-bye for the evening. My
friend Godefroi, the editor, from whose table I address
you, is looking with anxiety at the ink, to continue para-
graphs that will probably prolong his detention here ten
years longer. He is really a good-hearted man, and does
everything d me distrain. Say everything that is gracious
for me to ...

"Ever sincerely yours,

"G.B."

One day it happened to be a French translation of
Byron's Life, and he turned the pages over with rapidity,
reading aloud, and with an air of great satisfaction and
apparent pride: "Oui" he said to Godefroi, "ce poete, ce
grand homme^fut mon ami" It was the only time that his
fellow-prisoner ever heard him allude to his former
position.

Each day at two o'clock he descended to the debtor's
courtyard for his exercise: after spending three hours at
his toilette^ well-groomed, with shining boots, with his
neck-cloth as white and well tied, his hat smoothed to a
hair, as perfect as if he had been going to pay a visit to
one of his ladies. In this courtyard, separated from that
of thieves and other criminals by a thin partition, between

236

the hours of two and four he received his numerous visitors
and his prison levees were well attended and merry
enough. But if anyone offered to condole for the tardiness
of his release, his gaiety soon evaporated.

One day a rich Garlist of Caen was brought in. Baron
de Bresmenil, to serve a sentence of five days for " treason 3 ',
as driving in his carriage he had responded to the cries of
supporters of Louis Philippe with cries of "Vive Henri
Cinq!" The Baron decided to celebrate his incarceration
with a grand dinner from Longuet's, and allowed Brum-
mell to select his favourite dishes. The chief guest from
outside was another friend of BrummelPs, the Comte de
Roncherolles, who brought a bottle of brandy d'Andaye,
of which Brummell was very fond. When the dinner was
over, and BrummelTs features reflected the pleasure of
the kors-d'&uvres and the entree, of the mushroom and the
truffle, of the homards and the fruits glaces, of the Chamber-
tin and the Lafitte, he rose above his misfortunes, and
related with much humour anecdotes of his early life.
The Comte de Roncherolles announced his bottle of old
eau-de-vie d'Andaye^ and Brummell turned to one of the
three young thieves who had waited at dinner: "Fetch
the bottle, fetch the bottle: my dear Roncherolles, no
cognac I ever tasted can be compared to your d'Andaye !"

But the petty larcenist who left the room for the brandy,
did not return: another was sent to hasten him, and the
third, but none came back: till the attendants returned
with the message that the brandy of Monsieur le Comte
had disappeared ! The Baron, who was as tall and brawny
as a Hercules, threatened to throw the three footmen out
of the window, forgetting that his present windows were
well furnished with bars. In the midst of the fray Brummell
rose from his chair, and spreading his arms towards the
three delinquents, he shrieked out: "Malheureux! On ne

237

vous a que trop bien traites. Scelerats^ rendez-rnoi man pousse-
caf el" This energetic address became more pathetic when
one of the party returned with the information that not
the three thieves but the turnkey, Brillant, to whose special
care the cognac had been confided, had drained it to the
last drop, and was lying insensible, snoring in a corner!

In the middle of July things began to look brighter.
Armstrong had undertaken yet another, and this time
most urgent, journey to London. It was a difficult task,
for some of the old friends, who had assisted Bmmmell so
many times, were not inclined to be greatly impressed
by his dire plight. But Armstrong, unembarrassed by
feelings of delicacy, undertook the collection of donations
as a man of business, and he found two splendid sup-
porters in the Duke of Beaufort and that staunches* of
BrummelPs friends, Lord Alvanley. Their influence in-
duced many other friends to subscribe to a fund for Brum-
melTs release from prison. One of the donors was King
William IV, who personally knew very little of Brummell,
but subscribed one hundred pounds when BrummelPs
deplorable condition was brought to his notice. This
generous act of the King influenced Lord Palmerston who
added 200 from the Treasury. Armstrong then collected
250 more, in gifts of 25 each from the Duke of Devon-
shire, Lord Sefton, General Upton, General Grosvenor,
Colonel Howard, Charles Greville, and many others. The
Duke of Beaufort, Alvanley, Sefton and Greville gave,
fiirthermoF ^"assurance "to pfovide "" annually for poor
Brummell.

~On the morning of the sist of July, an attorney by the
name of M. Youf came to the prison, and notified to
Brummell that his debt to M. Leveux had been paid, and
that he was at liberty to leave the prison when he pleased.

238

To the astonishment of everyone, Brummell received
the information without manifesting the slightest surprise
or joy. At five o'clock in the afternoon, after an imprison-
ment of two months and seventeen days, he left the gaol
with an air of insouciance, and returned to the Hotel
d'Angleterre, and went up to his rooms as if returning
from a visit to the seaside.

That same evening he presented himself at a large
soiree at the General's. He advanced towards the centre of
the room, and as the company, who had not heard of his
release, could not suppress their surprise, he bowed his
thanks right and left: "Gentlemen, I am extremely grate-
ful for your kindness, and charmed to be once again with
you; I can assure you that it is today the happiest day of
my life for I have just come out of prison," and here he
paused, and then gravely added: "and I have eaten some
excellent salmon."

239

IV

But it was all a make-believe. He deluded himself that
it was a great thing to be free again, "to go about" in
the world. Back at the troisieme at the Hotel d'Angleterre
he had looked at his things, his few miserable possessions,
that were all that was left of his former grandeur. His
clock, his vases, his candlesticks, the brass-ribbed
mahogany box with "G.B." inlaid on top, and the box
with the birds under glass that had been worked for him
by the Duchess of York, and his precious toilet things, and
most of all his green velvet arm-chair. And to open his
trunks, and look at his wardrobe or what was left of it.
And now that Armstrong had paid all the debts, it
seemed almost as if life could start afresh. Indeed, it was
a pleasure to send some partridges to the good Godefroi
who was still in prison: "Grondez, man cher Monster Godefroi.,
leperfide chefde cuisine et nonpas mafidele memoir e, for having
so long delayed the offer of a little covey of patridges,
nested in their wall of crust. ... Be good enough to
address my friendly regards to the gallant Father Bassy,
and let him share at least a leg. ... I beg to prostrate
myself and my gentle souvenirs to the velvet pads of
Mademoiselle Minette, and remember me to the worthy
Lavigne and his twin Baptiste. You will be delighted to hear
that we have recently seen perched upon the coach, en
route to Honfleur, our ci-devant valet Lafleur, as gay as the
coach that was carrying him, clasping in his Achillean arms
the nice waist of a captured princess with a hat crowned
with three feathers, red like her blooming cheeks! 5 '

240

But,. as usual, he was too neglectful, too impertinent
with some of the people of Caen. To some who had been
kind to him during his imprisonment he was profuse with
thanks; others he neglected altogether: he appeared to
think that by assuming an air of flippant indifference he
could throw a veil over the events of the last three months.
One of these acquaintances was one of the Judges, who,
in his official capacity, had been of great service to him.
This Judge, a man of quick repartee, shared the table
d'hote at the Hotel d'Angleterre, and had the weakness
to consider himself an expert on horsemanship and on
dress, both of which, with him, were execrably bad : he
used to wear a white macintosh that was so stiff that when
in the saddle it made him rattle like an armadillo out of
repair. But Brummell had a far stronger motive for dis-
liking him : the Judge actually kept a toothpick, a per-
manent pinchback toothpick, which, from its antique
appearance, had probably belonged to his great-grand-
father, and had therefore been used to pick the teeth of
four generations, a disgusting idea. Brummell used to say:
"Corpo di Bacco, a most horrible practice!" It happened
that about a fortnight after he had regained his liberty, he
met the learned Judge in the street, and though he had
not cared to call upon him and express his thanks, he
greeted him lightly: "Ah, mon cher Areopagite, I am so
sorry not to have paid you my little visit; but the fact is
that my visiting-cards which are always made in Lon-
don, have not yet arrived." "Really !" answered thevexed
Judge with a very stiff bow in his white macintosh. cc Do
not trouble at all, Monsieur Brummell; if you had made
me that honour, I could not have returned it for you, for
at the moment I too am without cards, and mine are
always made in China!"

But impertinence and sans souci, it was all a make-

241

believe, A lady said: "I regret having losfc several letters
and some poetry he has sent to me; they wore full of the
sadness he felt in his solitude, that was pushing him to
recall the brilliant past and the present so sad, and the
future so frightening to think of. ... Yet he affected to
challenge Fortune and to laugh at her blows."

Yes, the people of Caen still looked at him when he took
a walk; and rich travellers at the hotel made advances
with a glass of champagne so as to hear him talk and
recount his personal history: but where was his exclusive-
ness, that was so formidable in the London days ?

But "Miss. Aimable" returned from England a young
woman of nineteen, not quite so yielding to the doubtful
fascination of a man who was no longer Beau Brummell,
and nearly forty years her senior. Short of his album,
which he had already given her, he searched his papers
for something that might attract her; he drew sketches
of her: "Daignez agreer Vqffrande d'un esquisse pour votre
album. I am discontented with it; it is too deeply shaded,
and that fault has been unavoidable from the maudit papier
qui buvail whenever my contending crayon came in con-
tact (pretty alliteration) with its spongy surface. Receive
it as it is; the only merit to which it may pretend is, its
being original : as you said of some of my other produc-
tions, I never copied anything or anybody. Deny me not
your thanks for the drawing: and if you are the same
amiable creature that you used to be in our earlier
acquaintance, tell me that I may still cherish the faith of
existing sempre in your continued friendship." But did she
tell him? Ah, the poor old Beau, still trying to be witty
with the girl of nineteen: "I am too much saddened by
the shadows of Vallombrosa, at Madame de Seran's last
night, to hold my head up if I saw you. I shall take to
rouge if this goes on. . . ."

242

Take to rouge yes, to rouge his very heart, his very
soul, walking blindly on, with eyes closed to the tragedy
that is closing in. The ladies are beseeching him to give
them souvenirs, some relics of his old days in England.
What! Do they consider him already a corpse? But he
walked on and on, the same soirees, and the same whist
parties, the same habits as before, two hours in his tub,
two hours before the looking-glass; he read, he drew, he
wrote notes to his lady acquaintances, dined, "drank tea"
with a friend, and gave some relics to this or that privi-
leged lady, the bits that had been presented to him "by
his titled and fashionable friends of Langsyne. . . ."
"Upon ransacking other debris of former times, I cannot
find any note-keepers in better preservation than the two
wrecks you now receive. Their only recommendation
may be that the green one was worked by Lady Sarah
Saville; the other, of the dove tint, like her eyes, was the
travail of Lady Foley; both of them at that halcyon
period, blooming in surpassing beauty!"

Yes, it was all a make-believe. For his finances were in
a pitiful state. If Brummell had no more debts com-
paratively speaking he neither had any more income.
The coming out of prison had given him, for a short
while, a new prestige, almost a credit, "a man who had
paid his debts". But his income was what it was, the
meagre 120 a year, which had been promised by his
friends in London, and half of which Armstrong had to
pay to Madame Fichet for his board and lodgings at the
Hotel d'Angleterre, and the rest was for wine, fire, wash-
ing and clothes, and if anything remained out of the 60
it could be used for the incidental expenses which his
peculiar habits made endless. This income of 120 was
40 more than Brummell technically had during his
consulship after mortgaging four-fifths of his salary to

243

the banker Leveux; but it still was a very small income.

Nor could Brummell, not even after his experience of
prison, be converted to the idea of thrift. He could do
without many things, but he could not do without the
multitude of etceteras which were the necessity of his very
existence: a man of Brummell's cast could do without
necessities but not without the luxuries.

Towards the end of the year things were getting again
in a muddle. The wise and watchful Armstrong brought
him to give up three changes of shirts and cravats a day,
and be quite content with one. But Brummell could not
in his heart resign himself to renounce his primrose
gloves, his eau-de-Cologne, the oil for his wig, and most of
all his patent blacking for his boots. This last was the sub-
ject of a correspondence with Armstrong:

"My dear Armstrong, November, 1836

"Mulet, the bootmaker, has this instant been with me,
in an insolent manner, and says that as you have refused
positively to pay his account, or the principal part of it,
for vernis, he shall proceed against me for the amount of
this debt, unless it is settled the present day. Send me the
money on my account. I have not four francs in my pos-
session, and it will utterly destroy me to see a bailiff enter
my room, or assault me in the street.

"I will enter into any promise with you upon the sub-
ject of this d d polish that you demand, if you will in-
stantly enable me to pay this scoundrel.

Most truly yours,

G.B."

This vernis de Guiton he used to order expressly from
Paris and it cost five francs a bottle. "Dear Armstrong/'
he wrote again a month later. "Do not be any more out

244

of temper with me. I do not deserve it from you; I have
never trespassed upon the rules of economy which you
dictated to me, excepting in one instance, and that has been

for that d d execrable blacking. I have now relinquished it

for ever!" And the pitiful letter, with the avowal that
brought tears to his eyes his blacking! was ending with
a more pitiful confession: "I am not ashamed to tell you
candidly that I have not two sous remaining of the twenty
francs you had the goodness to send me. 55

He tried a lottery, without any luck. The lottery office
lodged a claim in December. "Dear Armstrong, You have
hurt me more than I can express by your note to me this
morning. I will never again commit such an extravagant
and senseless error. But do not allow the precipitate anger
of the moment to damp and destroy your friendly efforts
to save me. I will endeavour to write, the instant I am
restored to calmness, to the Duke of Devonshire. It would
afflict me to suppose that my immediate unfortunate
affairs interfered with your better interests in other
quarters. " This was a reference to Armstrong's desire to
be appointed Vice-Consul in Caen.

At last, Armstrong put his foot down : such cleanliness
as a shirt and neckcloth every day was a great extrava-
gance. What a sadness not to be any more a paragon of
cleanliness ! And then the last blow came, though Arm-
strong did not have the heart to inflict it himself, and got
a lady to do the work: his white cravat had to go. The
lady told him, in a jocular manner, that his looks, as a
mature man, would be improved by a black cravat.
Brummell went immediately to his comptroller, and hav-
ing obtained permission to purchase one, to the amaze-
ment of his friends, he appeared the next morning in the
Rue St. Jean in what had all his life been his particular
aversion a black silk neckerchief!

245

V

Was it the finger of Fate? The black cravat was the
signal of the end, his own mourning of his now
departed elegance. His self-respect vanished with the
black cravat.

.Now he would dine with anyone who would pay the
bill. His memory gave way, he would repeat the same
story over and over again. He became careless in his man-
ners; indeed he became filthy so filthy that people in
the hotel objected to his presence in the dining-room. His
white foamy cravat, his emblem to which he had clung
with affection all his life, was now gone, and Brummell the
Beau died that day snowy cambric gently starched had
become to him matters of history. The decayed and
diminished state of his wardrobe, that he had now no
prospect of replenishing, was an additional reason for
such a dereliction of all his former principles.

He was in need of a dressing-gown; instead of a shawl
one that he had applied for, suitable for winter wear,
Armstrong sent him a cotton one. When Brummell un-
folded the garment he was so enraged that he threw it out
of the window; the unlucky dressing-gown landed upon
the diligence of Bayeux. And yet, a few weeks later he
must write to Armstrong: CC I have not a single shirt that
will hang to my back, nor are my socks and drawers in
a better state! 55

The St. Ursains leave Caen for good. His oldest and
dearest friends. He took leave by letter; he could not
stand to appear in such a deplorable state, and in such

246

agony of mind, before the "Miss Aimable" who had won
the love of his old age.

"It disappointed me much not to shake hands with you
en adieux yesterday. It was perhaps the last occasion I
shall find in the world to express my devoted gratitude to
you and yours, for all your kindness towards me: may we
meet as good friends in the next! Pray, while you enact
the chaperon with all commendable discretion, do not
forget the spirit of indulgence for youthful feeling that
pervades the lines in my old album, "Oh let the young
enthusiast stray." Tell her also, for it is the simple un-
assuming truth, that wherever I may hereafter sojourn,
far away, she will never, for an hour, be forgotten by
me. Adieu! and may you all be happy! God bless you.

Ever sincerely yours,

GEORGE BRUMMELL."

And now, what mattered ?

One day, Tom Moore, the poet and songster, came
to see him in Caen. Tom Moore ! Oh, memories of Lon-
don, of Byron, of Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire! Tom
Moore, who had been one of the three poet-members of
Watier's. It was like a resurrection from the grave. But it
was too late. Were there some in London who remem-
bered his sartorial tyranny ? And his exquisite elegance of
manners and of wit? Moore was shaken with pity. To
the friends in London he reported: "The poor Beau's
head is gone, and his whole looks so changed that I should
never have recognized him."

Now he did not care any longer to go about in tatters :
he threw his old green coat with the worn-out fur collar
over his holes. Dnly his tailor at Caen felt soiiyjor him:
"J'flz honte de voir un homme si cittbre et si distingut, et avec

247

une place dam Fhistoire, dans un etat si malheureux" Yes, yes,
a man so famous and so distinguished, ami with a place
in history, in such a disgraceful condition! And the tailor,
the plain provincial tailor, had pity on the decayed Beau,
and not being able to afford to give him some new clothes,
he kept him in such repair as was still possible.

He became a glutton, as greedy of sweet things as a
child. He was fond of biscuits de Rheims^ he was greedy for
a little glass of Curaao. Unable to pay for them, he
would go to the confectionery shop of Monsieur Magda-
laine off the Place Royale and beg to have it on his
account. He used to drink a cup of coffee, eat two of his
biscuits which were always favoured by a glass of Curagao,
and paid for them with a bow. When the shop showed
reluctance he began to sell his trinkets and the things that
even in this poverty he considered part of himself; and
now he pawned them for a few sous. And to procure some
perfumed oil for his wig he disposed of a handsome
repeater to an Englishman of the name of Pitt, a tulle
manufacturer of Caen; it had originally cost eighty
guineas and now was sold for a very small sum; no one
knew who negotiated the sale, for the man Pitt was not
in the circle of Brummell. So went the porcelain vases,
another watch, the seals, and a chain, and even his last
silver snuff-box was pledged to Monsieur Magdelaine for
more biscuits de Rheims. But he never sold a single thing to
his equals : a friend, one day, offered him a sum for his
ormolu greyhound which he kept upon the mantelshelf.
Brummell refused it: "If you are interested in it, pray
accept it, but I won't sell it. 35

Some people still received him his faithful aaid loyal
hostesses; but he was now such a driveller and he fell
asleep by the fireplace. Yet, in all his rags, he would still
walk on his tip-toes from cobble to cobble, making sure

248

the rain did not splash the boots that were no longer
shining with Guiton's polish. One night he slipped and
fell, and the urchins laughed and shrieked after him:
"There goes Monsieur Brummett le Dandy ^

Now the voice went round the drawing-rooms that his
mind was going he was having delusions; the hotel's
valet had said it. The "old man 33 the valet had said
was now quite mad; he was holding receptions with
ghosts? Receptions? With the ghosts? The hostesses of
Caen shuddered and sighed.

One cold and gloomy winter afternoon a foreign lady
arrived at the Hotel d'Angleterre, without equipage, ser-
vant or luggage. The stranger was of a certain age and
plainly dressed, but, to the hostler's eye, unmistakably a
great lady. She requested to be given a private room, and
asked the landlord: "Is Mr. Brummell still living in this
hotel ? I am most anxious to see him. Can you put me in
the way of doing so, without the chance of his seeing me?"
"At five o'clock, Madame, he usually opens his door: you
will be quite able to see him from the door of the opposite
room on the same landing."

Who was this lady? Was she Lady Jersey, the former
patroness of Almack's, who had imposed upon herself this
pilgrimage, not to a shrine but to a living grave ? At five
o'clock she stood in the dark frame of her door and put a
hand to her mouth to stifle a cry. In the shabby, almost
bare room across the landing, a whist table was laid, and
two bougies were lit, with cheap tallow. The valet stood at
the door, announcing the ghosts: "Lady Conyngham!
Lord^fcrmouth! Her Grace Georgiana Duchess of
Devonshire!" And the Beau, in his tattered suit, rose
from his chair and advanced towards the door, and
greeted the cold air from the staircase, and bowed low

249

and gracefully to the ghosts. "Ah, my deap: Duchess, how
rejoiced I am to see you! Pray bury yoursilf in this arm-
chair: do you know, it was a gift from tlie Duchess of
York? . . ."

The ghosts, the ghosts ! The mysterious lady ran down
the stairs, pulling down her veil to hide her tears. She left
a gold louis on the counter, and mounting in hr chaise
she departed at once, and was gone with the ghosts
upstairs.

250

EPILOGUE

Now his beard was unshaved and his mind was utterly
gone- And illness made him unclean. The Beau was
lost to the world.

One morning, in May 1839, his landlord, Fichet,
ordered a carriage to be drawn nearest to the secondary-
staircase that led to the shabby apartment on the troisieme.
He went upstairs with Mr. Armstrong, and they found
Brummell in his arm-chair by the fire, the chair which
had been given to him by the Duchess of York; sitting
there with his wig upon his knees, and dipping his brush
into an old pewter shaving-box which stood on the table,
lathering the wig prior to shaving it. "Bonjour, M. Brum-
mell, would you like to come for a little drive ?" "Laissez-
moi tranquille" and he went on with his lathering. They
coaxed him. They took him away forcibly. He cried : "Am
I going back to prison? Oh no, Armstrong, not that!"

No, it was not prison; it was the Bon Sauveur, a pious
institution for the mentally deranged. A nun met them,
and Brummell mistook her for Auguste, Armstrong's
servant. The nun smiled, while Brummell, totally uncon-
scious of its absurdity, shyly added: "Ah, vous Stes marine!
Eh bien, je vous filidte^ car. . . ." And he added: "Vous
Stes bien unejoliefemme"

They took him to his new room, with a blazing fire and
an arm-chair in front of it; it was the room that had for-
merly been occupied by Bourrienne, Napoleon's A.D.C.,
who, like Brummell, had seen the ups and downs of glory
ialife.

And there, in the peace of the Bon Saweur, Brummell
spent his last few months. On the evening of his death,
about an hour before he expired, the debility having be-
come extreme, he assumed an appearance of intense
anxiety and fear, and his eyes fixed upon the Institution
Priest with an expression of entreaty, raising his hands,
as he lay in the bed, as though imploring assist^jice, but
saying nothing. Then he was quiet, and died quietly. It
was a quarter past nine in the evening of the 3Oth of
March 1840.

He was buried in the dreary Protestant cemetery of
Caen, a wilderness of weeds and fennel, with a plain slab
of black marble erected by his brother and sister.

Such is the story of George Brummell. He had not been
rich, he had not been noble, yet his memory and his name
live for ever. For he was King "by the grace of Grace".

CONNELY, W.:

252

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ASHTON, JOHN: Old Times. A Picture of Social Life at the End

of the Eighteenth Century.
Social England Under the Regency.

BARBEY D'AUREVILLY, J. A.: Du Dandisme et de George Brum-
mell.

BOUTET DE MONVEL, R. : Beau Brummell and His Times.

BOULANGER, JACQUES : Les Dandys.

BERESFORD, CHANCELLOR: Life in the Regency and Early Vic-
torian Times.

BERKELEY, GRANTLEY: Life and Recollections.

BOURKE, HON. A. B.: History of White's.

BULWER-LYTTON, E. G.: Pelham or the Adventures of a Gentle-
man.

CONNELLY, W.: The Reign of Beau Brummell.

CORRY, JOHN: Satirical View of London Men and Manners.

FILON, AUGUSTINE P. M.: La Caricature en Angleterre.

FORGUES, E. D.: Originaux et Beaux Esprits de V Angleterre Con-
temporaine.

GRANVILLE, LADY HARRIET: Letters (1810-45).

HUISH, ROBERT: Memoirs of George IV.

GRONOW, CAPT. R. H. : Reminiscences.
Recollections and Anecdotes.

JESSE, CAPTAIN: The Life of Beau Brummell.

CAMPBELL, K. : Beau Brummell.

LISTER, T. H.: Granby.

MELVILLE, L. : Beau Brummell: His Life and Letters.

QUENNELL, P.: Byron: The Tears of Fame.

RAIKES, T.: Journals.

WHEATLEY, H. B. : Round About Piccadilly and Pall Mall.

WILSON, HARRIETTS: Memoirs.

WRAXALL, SIR N. W.: Historical Memoirs of My Own Time.

WOOLF, V.: Beau Brummell.

253

INDEX

Allen, King, friend of Brummell, 227 Caen, 15, 189, 190, 192,^93-252
Alvanley, Lord, 68, 70, 108, 123, Calais, 143, 147-56, -- *
124, 137, 138, 139, 140, 158, 164,

166, 173, 175, 182, 183, 188, 216,

218, 227, 238
Angelo, fencing master, 33
Angouleme, Duchess of, 170
Armstead, Mrs., 31
Armstrong, Charles, 207-9, 215,

216-17, 218, 226, 227, 232-4, 238,

240,243,244-5,251

Beckfbrd, Letters from Paris, 218
Bellingham, Sir W., 150
Berrington, Abelard and Eloisa, 137
Bessborough, Lord, 152
Blessington, Lady, The Two Friends,

210

Blessington, Lord, 150
Bligh, son of the Earl of Darnley, 29
Bloomfield, Sir Benjamin, 133, 177,

178-9

Boothby, 'Prince', 106
Bresmenil, Baron de, 237
Brooks, Mr., founder of Brooks's

Club, 6 1, 62
Brummell, Mrs., mother of George,

19
Brummell, George, passim

The Butterfly's Funeral, 98-9
Brummell, William, brother of

George, 19, 20
Brummell, William, father of

George, 17-19, 26-7
Brummell, William, grandfather of

George, 17, 1 8
Brummell, Maria, sister of George,

19
Byron, Lord, 44, 60, 63, 69, 86, 108,

1 66

on Brummell, 50, 68, 141

Brummell on Byron, 163, 172,
218, 236

I 74~9 I

Capel, friend of Brummell, 79
Caroline, Queen, 37-8, 120
Chamberlayne, John, 158, 166
Charlotte, Princess, 38, 172
Chartres, Due de; see Philippe *Ega-

lite'

Chesterfield, Lord, Letters, 59, 91
Christie, James, auctioneer, 150, 151
Clarke, Mrs., 126
Grockford, Junior, auctioneer, 186
Croker, diarist, 165
Cumberland, Duke of, 30, 33

Davidson, tailor, 33, 45, 51
Davies, Scrope, 142, 159, 162
Dawson, George, 181-4, 186
De Rothesay, Lord Stuart, 192, 194
Dessein, hotel-keeper, 153, 154, 160,

174, 177
Devonshire, Duchess of; see Georgi-

ana
Devonshire, Duke of, 63, 7 1, 1 10, 245

Edinburgh Review, 59

Ellis, Specimens of Early English

Metrical Romances, 137
Esterhazy, 150
Eton College, 20-2, 23, 24, 25, 26

Fichet, Mme, BrummelPs landlady,

229, 243, 251
Fitzherbert, Mrs. Maria Anne, 29,

30, 31, 32, 37, 118, 120, 121, 124,

165, 181
Fox, Charles James, 18, 21, 25, 31,

33~4, 43, 44, 45, 4^, 53> 57, 58, 61,
62, 67, no, 172

Frederika, Duchess of York, 16, 87
126-30, 156, 157, 164, 166, 173,
181, 191, 233, 240

254

Fribourg and Treyer, tobacconists,

1 01-2

Fryatt, horse-dealer, 60, 73

Gaussin, tailor, 189

George III, 21, 23, 29, 30, 53, iii-

12, 137
George IV, 16, 29-30, 31, 32-5, 37-

8, 44~5> 4$> 53> 62, 64, 67, 71,

73-4, 108, 109, 111-17, 118-24,

126, 131-2, 188
George IV and Brummell, 36, 102-

3, 161, 165, 166, 174-5

first meeting, 224

second meeting, 27-8

Brummell allowed to resign his

commission, 3940

Bmmmell's influence on his dress,

40, 45, 46

Brummell a favourite, 645, 66

Brummell and the gift-horse, 68

exchange of snuff-boxes, 1 19, 122,

153

Brummell's ridicule, 119, 120-3,

124

cause of George's dislike, 124-5

George at Calais ignored Brum-

mell, 177-9, *8 1

bought one of BrummelPs tea-

sets, 1 86

head carved on Brummell's cane,

201

Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire,
56-9, 86, 98, 1 10

Brummell's copy of Reynold's

portrait, 100, 203
Gibbon, 58

Gloucester, Duke of, 157
Godefroi, journalist, 230-1, 235,

236, 240
Grammont, Chevalier de, Memoirs,

59> 137

Grenville, Earl, ambassador, 225
Grenville, George, Chancellor, 18
Greville, Charles, 128, 184, 186,

238

Hertford, Marquis of, 168, 169, 170,
171

Hill, William, 80

Holland, Henry, architect, 32

Hughes, Lieut.-Col., friend of Brum-
mell, 163, 1 66

Isidore, BrummelTs valet, 208

Jenkinson, William Charles, 17-18
Jersey, Lady, 76, 120
Jesse, Captain, 81, 167, 191, 199-
201, 202, 206

Kemble, Fanny, The American Jowr-
ney, 210

Lac, Mme du, 203

Lafleur (Lapine), Paul, Brummell's
valet, 235, 240

Leleux, bookseller, Brummell's land-
lord, 153, 166, 176, 177, 210, 227

Lennox, Lord William Pitt, 174

Leveux, Jacques, banker, 154, 155,
I59> I9 - 1 * 206-7, 216, 218, 229,
238

Lister, Granby, a characterization of
Brummell, 67

Longuet, restaurant-keeper, 215,

237

Lome, Marquis of, 158

Lumley, son of the Earl of Scar-
borough, 29

Lytton, Bulwer, 26

Pelham, a portrait of Brummell,

93
referred to by Brummell, 200

The Student, 231, 236

Madison, the Prince's page, 107
Manners, Lords Robert and Charles,

29

in debt with Brummell, 138

Brummell's letter to them, 147-9
Marshall, Consul in Calais, 191, 194,

228

Meyer, tailor, 42, 51, 66

Meyler, 139-40, 141

Mildmay, Sir Henry, 122, 123, 124

Mills, Pemberton, friend of Brum-
mell, 136

Mol6, Count Louis, 192, 195

Monson, Charles, 17

Montrond, Count Casimir de, 156,

192-3

Moore, Thomas, 109, 122, 247
Murray, John, publisher, 165
Murray, Lord William, 39

Neckclothiana, 49-50

255

Norfolk, Duke of, 34
North, Lord, 18, 20, 137

Oxford University, 25, 26

Paget, Sir Arthur, 179
Palmerston, Lord, 211, 225
Philippe, Duke of Orleans, Regent,

172
Philippe c galite', Duke of Orleans,

33
Pitt, William, 53, 57, 66, 69, 77-8,

79> 82, 137

Porden, William, architect, 3 1
Prince Regent; see George IV
Pucker Muskau, Prince, 185-6

Radford, Jack, stud-groom, 33

Raikes, Thomas, friend of Brum-
mell, 149, 159, 174, 175

Richardson, Brummell's mother's
maiden name, 19

Robinson, BrummelPs valet, 40, 49,

7i
Robinson, Mary Ann (Terdita'),

30, 118

Roncherolles, Baron de, 237
Roscoe, William, The Butterfly* s Ball,

9 8 . .
Rossini, composer, 46

Saint Ursain, Mme de Guernon, 15,

194-5, 209, 210, 216, 217, 218,

225, 246
Saint Ursain, Mile H&ene, 86, 205,

217, 219-22, 224-5, 226, 227, 242,

247

Salisbury, Marchioness of, 23, 24
Sandwich, Lord, 44
Schweitzer and Davidson, tailors,

42, 51
Scott, General, 134

Searle, Mrs., Brrnnnn ell's aunt, 23-4,

27 i

Sefton, Lord, i%-3> ^S, 169, 238
Selgne, Francois! Brummell's valet,

156, 161, 178, 179, 189, 190, 191,

*93> J 95> 227
Selwyn, George, 41, 62
Seymour, Miss Georgiana, 84-5
Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 18, 21,

33>34>44>57> iO9> J fe
Somerset, Lord Edward^, 9
Spencer, Lady Georgiaria; see

Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire
Stael, Madame de, 48, 69, io8 2
Stanhope, Lady Hester, 77-84* no
Storer, Julia, 88

Talleyrand, 192-3
Trebeck's Granby, a portrait of
Brummell, 93

Vos, M. de, 157

Wales, Prince of; see George IV
Walpole, Horace, Letters, 163
Watier, the Prince's chef, 108
Wellington, Duke of, and Brummell,
134, 158, 183, 184, 1 86, 188-9,
216, 218

Weltje, Louis, the Prince's confiden-
tial agent, 31, 32, 33
Westmorland, Lord, 161
Wilde, Oscar, The Importance of
Being Earnest, 71

similarity to Brummell, 104, 121
William IV, 188-9, 238

Wilson, Harriette, courtesan, 37,
162, 179-80, 211

Memoirs, 76, 139-41, 180
Worcester, Lord, 49

York, Duchess of; see Frederika

Duke of, 53, 126, 127, 128, 129,

152, 176, 181

256

c z

fii

1 34 026